What did you eat on Christmas Day? Did you buy/make too much food?

[LegoTherapy]

I don't know why I buy so much yet I do it year after year😩 I think I see and read if Christmas mean and think we'll eat loafs. We never do.
I have a fridge full of food that will last ages.

Breakfast: half a toasted muffin and a cup of tea
Lunch: fried potato sandwich and cup of tea
Dinner: marrowfat peas, honey roast carrots and parsnips, 1 and a half roast potatoes, 1 and a half stuffing balls, cranberry sauce, two sprouts (just to be festive). Small slice of homemade Yule log. Glass of alcohol free wine.

Snacks: handful of raspberries, 2 chocolate biscuits from M&S, bowl of crisps. Water. Can of M&S hard seltzer.

I think I want to experience the Christmas film/book Christmas with lots of food and people but the reality is I prefer just close family and a few special food items but otherwise not much out of the ordinary. Boring perhaps. Eyes bigger than belly definitely. I feel disappointed which is silly.

Do you go all out or are you captain sensible and stick in your ways like me? 😁

I do love beige delights! At least beige food doesn't contain colourings linked to hyperactivity in children 😁

Cooked extra piles of special veg
had gammon and Turkey

no cooking for a few days as these are eaten

Breakfast greek yogurt with blueberries

Lunch chickpea salad

Christmas meal
mashed carrots, honeyed parsnips and sprouts
Nut roast
Yorkshire pudding
Roast potatoes.

Snack piece of stollen
1 glass of vodka and lime
7 glasses of water.

We have loads of sweet treats but I'm not fussed about them. Dh bought them.

Big walk on the beach with the dog followed by bacon roll with coffee.

Bloody Mary whilst prepping lunch

Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, sausage meat stuffing, pigs in blankets, carrots, Brussels with chestnuts, onion gratin, broccoli, gravy. White wine.

no pudding for me - stuffed - but brownies, apple pie, cheesecake and pavlova for everyone else. else.

espresso and a few truffles later, more white wine.

Going to be making a lot of bubble and squeak, completely overcooked!

Cheeseboard, smoked salmon and biscuits all day Boxing Day. And M and S pork belly squares. More white wine in the evening.

Well I'm on my todd and I made Xmas dinner for myself and the dog 😂 She didn't eat her greens, as usual 🙄I cooked a turkey crown and all the trimmings, but I had kale rather than sprouts. I've saved and frozen a load for future repeat meals 😁

I know what you mean - I'm not a fan of any mincemeat like pies, puddings etc; generally don't like sweet foods like cakes and biscuits etc and I really don't like chocolate, but it's the same every year: I patrol the aisles looking at all the goodies out for Xmas and thinking 'ooh, that looks good' before remembering that I don't like it and even if I ate some of it rarely (chocolate, for example), it would likely still be here in August. But I feel the pressure to buy stuff I wouldn't eat at any other time almost impossible to resist. I do resist because I remind myself I won't eat it, but it's really difficult. I don't like it, I won't eat it but it does scream BUY ME NOW at me.

Luckily, I relieve that urge by buying booze.😂

Xmas day:
Panettone & satsumas for breakfast
Lobster mac & cheese / thermidor things from Aldi for starters
Turkey, pigs in blankets, stuffing balls, sprouts with chestnuts & pancetta, carrots, parsnips, roast potatoes, cranberry sauce.
No room for Xmas pudding so we had that on Boxing Day.
Few chocolates later on
DP also ate weetabix, banana, plum loaf, nuts, most of a bag of quality street, pork pie, chocolate dates, truffles and probably other stuff I can't remember!
Much alcohol throughout the day - bucks fizz with breakfast, festive aperol spritz, red wine with dinner, amaretto sours & french martinis.

Boxing day
No breakfast
Gammon, turkey, dauphinoise potatoes, winter slaw, green salad, pickles, chutney
Xmas pudding / yule log
Few chocolates, pork scratchings, pigs in blanket flavoured crisps
White wine spritzer

We'll be having bubble & squeak for brunch today, cauliflower cheese & gammon for dinner & will make & freeze a pie to use up the last of the meat. We still have a box of mince pies & a stollen left plus lots of cheese!

Didn't get round to making sausage rolls / mince pies Xmas eve so will make & freeze (think the sausage meat needs using soon ish & already been frozen). Might try a mincemeat crumble type thing to use that up.

Not too bad really - treat food should all be gone by New Year.

We have a late breakfast on the day (bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese), M&S canapés at around 2 ish, turkey dinner at 5, no starter. Hardly anybody ever wants anything else later, but if they do, they can pick at the turkey or the gammon.

Do you not eat much protein OP? It seems a bit lacking from your meals.
We have lots of leftovers but, like previous posters, that is great - no cooking today! We make everything from scratch pretty much - haven't started the Christmas cake yet, have various homemade biscuits and mince pies in the freezer that we will eat gradually. We had a rib of beef on Xmas day which is pretty much done but have lots of ham, sausage meat stuffing and pigs in blankets to keep us satisfied meat wise. A big batch of cauli cheese and lots of veg too. We also have some leftover pasta from Xmas eve that we might have for lunch today. The run up to 25th is so busy and love a few chilled days of leftovers here

I think the problem is its difficult to buy for small amounts and things dont get sold after xmas day, so the yule log has gone off before we could get to it but I would like some more but I bet theres none about and if there is, the same problem occurs when we cant get through it before the use by date. OH wont eat left overs so theres lots of food that goes to waste. You cant buy a good quality small amount of turkey, the smallest joint we found serves 5. We simply dont have a fridge/freezer big enough to store a lot of this stuff

Xmas Day:
breakfast:
yoghurt and fruit and flaked almonds : me (my usual)
sushi : the children
smoked salmon bagel: Dh

snack after church:
2 prawn sandwich bite things : every one
smoked salmon : anyone who wanted

dinner:
roast duck &gravy
pigs in blankets
jewelled stuffing
roast potatoes
carrots/ parsnips/ green beans/ asparagus / courgettes/ tenderstem broccoli / sprouts
roasted shallots and radishes

we roasted a chicken alongside the duck in case anyone fancied chicken, and to eat as leftovers on Boxing Day as we wouldn't have much left on duck

much later we had panettone for tea

much later still, everyone else had some charcuterie and cheese while watching Xmas telly, I was still full.

The kids had a couple of chocolate coins after lunch also.

Danish Pastry for breakfast
Colin the Caterpillar birthday cake for lunch
Party food and cold meats late afternoon/early evening

Any left overs were finished up yesterday apart from a bit of turkey which I'll bung in a risotto later.
It's just me and DP here so we didn't worry about doing things "properly" we just did what we wanted.

Boxing day:
Breakfast - I had greek yoghurt, the kids had smoked salmon with toast or bagels

late lunch: filled nduja pasta for the kids, cheesy dips with toast and celery for me and DH

We ate stollen bites and homemade almond cake while watching Xmas films.

Supper: butter chicken curry with peppers and courgette, I had cauliflower rather than rice

home made chocolate mousse for pudding, which we had with fruit

We have also been picking at a festive gammon and have got through about a bottle and a half of wine.

We're better it judging portions now than when we started (DH and I had a couple of Christmas for 2 years, in between the massive family gatherings, before DD turned up. And we've had maybe 8 or so since then, with the others being the massive family events - dd is now 19).

Start by having freezer space for leftovers - so I might freeze 3/4 or a whole turkey breast on Christmas night to enjoy another time in a few weeks when we're not sick of it.

We have a few ways to use leftovers.

We only buy what we like - I don't get tims of celebrations etc as we just graze mindlessly on them - instead, I buy 1 big bag of Leonidas orangettes instead as we really love those and enjoy the treat over a few nights.

We tend to do things like make up a big bowl of fruit salad to enjoy as part of breakfasts, and have bowls of olives and cherry tomatoes for grazing on as well as crisps. So it's not all piling on pounds.

A nd I like a variety of veg, but we do small amounts to suit the number of people eating. Some years I only do 1 or 2, some years I have a few different ones but smaller amounts of each.

Xmas day I didn't have breakfast, lunch I had turkey, ham, beef, two pigs in blankets, one potato because we misjudged the amount needed, carrots, sprouts, gravy.
Strawberry trifle after.

In the evening we put out sausage rolls, mince pies, jam tarts, pickles, cold meats, Christmas cake, chocolates and cheese and biscuits. That's between 8 of us and everyone had a bit of everything.

Crumpets and bucks fizz for breakfast.

Hot beige party food and chocs snacked on all day, no Xmas lunch. The prawn toast and duck spring rolls were delicious. DH loved the korean bbq sliders. Cheesecake factory cheesecake for dessert, that was in the evening when DM popped round.

It took a few Christmases to get the amount/portion size correct for my family. I now have a great meal plan mixed with a couple of extra treats/snacks and developed willpower not to buy a ton of nice stuff, as it does not get eaten.

The only blip this year was the very Jelly mix from M & S, nice tin but contents not particularly tasty.

Yes, I think I've definitely started being more conscious of just buying what I know we will eat and enjoy rather than eat mindlessly.

Protein? Usually yes, but not so much over Christmas. I eat red pepper hummus by the bucketful, halloumi, cheeses, lentils, Greek yogurt.