The other meal on Christmas Day

[Blankiefan]

We're doing turkey and trimmings for "lunch" but fancy doing something nice for our other meal. Lunch is at 2ish so we want to eat again about 6. Usually just M&S party food or charceuterie. Any ideas for something different? Should be something people can graze on in front of the telly.

-Help yourself to normal breakfast, about 9-10am after opening presents.
-Christmas dinner at 2pm
-Help yourself to snacks/cheese whenever - if hosting I'd offer coffee/tea about 6pm and see if anyone fancied a mince pie

What other meal?😂

We spread the meal over the day. Starters at 12 after church, main 2 ish Christmas pudding at 4 ish then cheeseboard/ cherry toms/grapes/celery/fruit about 7ish finishing with mince pies/ cake about 9. Im done by then, but the teenagers will have pizza later. It used to drive my mum mad as she wanted to eat the meal as one sitting early afternoon then have a high tea with cold turkey, ham, pork pie/salad about 6, but she never ever hosted, my Grandma did for years then it passed to me. My Grandma could only relax when tea was finished and cleared, but my way means I we can go leisurely. I prep everything in advance so there's not much work on Christmas Day.

Same!
It's bizarre though as I don't really eat cheese the rest of the year

Don't spoil a winning formula OP!

7pm M&S buffet with lots of cheeses, crackers and nibbles (another one here who can't stomach "picky tea" 😂) is the best way to end the day after a massive Christmas lunch!

The “what other meal” people clearly don’t have children who will eat the same amount of food for lunch even if there’s a mountain of food available. When mine were primary aged, they’d eat a good lunch, but will still be hungry at dinner time because they hadn’t stuffed themselves.

Which is a reasonable thing to do/behave and any other day of the year would be considered perfectly normal.

and now I have the bottomless pits of hunger that are teenagers. So they will be fridge raiding 4-5 hours after lunch however big the lunch was.

so evening - cooked meats, cheese board, fancy crackers, nice bread options, there will be some cocktail sausages and picnic eggs, hummus and breadsticks. Plus loads of nice chutneys. Then cake or more of whatever puddings I served.

Oh and I will put out grapes, carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes to make myself feel good about the meat and cheese meal and the kids will ignore them, taking a handful of grapes if I push.

M&S party food is also a good shout, sainsburys do good canapés as well and I think most can just be put in the oven at the same temperature.

I can't imagine being ready for another proper meal 4 hours after Christmas lunch! Why would you eat as early as 6pm if you'd had lunch at 2?!

There is no “other” meal on Christmas Day in my family.

I don’t mean that we couldn’t possibly eat anything more than the Christmas lunch because that would be oh so gluttonous! I mean that somehow, however big and filling our lunch was, we still manage to pick at things constantly the whole day. Full stomachs don’t exist on the 25th over here.

We have turkey sandwiches, cheese and mince pies.

oh god I’m having flashbacks to my childhood! My other is a massive over feeder, at Christmas we’d have turkey and all the trimmings about 1 and then back to the table about 6 for a high tea type meal - sliced meats, bread, pork pie, sausage rolls etc. as a teenager I managed to convince her that doing the same type of food but as a buffet was much better and we could eat what we wanted when we wanted in front of the telly. Boxing Day was pretty much a rerun of Xmas day for food. Now I spend Xmas day evening in my own house with DH and DD and we might have some nice crisps, charcuterie or party food bits in the evening but not a lot.

We solve this by having a late breakfast and Christmas dinner at around 5, plenty of canapés a couple of hours beforehand, so everyone’s far too stuffed to want anything later, except maybe a bit of a pick at cold turkey/gammon, cheese, mince pies, etc.

It makes for a much more civilised - and less rushed! - day for the cook. Any children can have something simple around their usual lunchtime - this year I’ll probably get fish fingers for the Gdcs.

We just do cheese and crackers, Pringles etc around tea time and no doubt more chocolate.

Agreed

I know you said you wanted something different to usual, and I am also watching with interest for ideas , but I know my lot would be gutted if the traditional cheeseboard / pate pdidn't make an appearance alongside bowls of crisps & nuts.
We also have our main meal at 2, have a break while we clear and maybe play a game, then have pudding, so don't need anything til 8 earliest. At which point all people want is cheese/pate, or turkey sandwiches 'made to order'. I usually also serve a plate of mince pies/stollen/Christmas cake, with a bowl of satsumas but am thinking PP's suggestion of a large fruit platter is a great idea. Downside is I'm not food shopping til Monday and I'm concerned that melons won't be ripe enough, I'd have bought one last week if I'd thought about it.

MIL always insists on a massive m&S buffet for 'tea'. It goes to waste. We eat a lot but we don't need another meal! Turkey sandwiches at around midnight go down well though.

Scrambled egg and smoked salmon for breakast at ca 8, go for a walk if possible, Jerusalem artichoke soup for lunch with a bit of ham or stilton on the side (I'm cooking the ham on Sunday) at 12:30, roast & etc, trifle, alcohol from 5:30 on.

Must remember to dig the artichokes.

We generally have cheese, crackers, pickles and charcuterie for tea on Christmas eve.

On Christmas day, we usually have cooked breakfast around 10 or 11am, then Christmas Dinner around 6pm.

Boxing day is generally a fend for yourself/leftovers kind of day.

Could you send me some ? I haven't seen any this year and Jerusalem artichoke soup is quite one of my favourite things to eat. Try putting a few fried Queen scallops in the bottom of the bowl 🤤 ...

If you're having the full roast (with maybe starters and pudding?) at 2pm then you surely can't start eating again at 6pm. You won't finish Christmas dinner until around 4pm. Personally I do either turkey & stuffing sandwiches at around 8 or 9pm or put a cheeseboard out around 7'ish for people to graze on. Most shop bought party food is very rich and needs heating up. The last thing I want to be doing is putting the oven back on on Christmas day evening.

I will throw some sausage rolls and chicken nuggets in air fryer and put the pringles out. If it doesn't get eaten they can go in the fridge to snack on in the week.

our Christmas Day eating will go..
midday lunch - a sharing platter of crab, gravadlax, potted shrimp and Melba toast; beef wellington then spotted dick or cottage cheese cheesecake
3pm - a sweet selection of mini mince pie, tiny pieces of homemade nougat and fudge and small slice of Christmas simnel cake with Kings Speech before mum and dad go home
around 7pm I reckon I will get some cheese out.

I have a useful thicket of Jerusalem artichokes in a bed near the kitchen door where I lazily threw away the peelings one very cold and wet day about 15 years ago.

For some reason the gardening books never recommend that method of propagation.

I have bought some fresh dill to mitigate the side effect (and also to go with my Christmas eve fish platter).

Lunch around 1 then cold stuff around 8