Making Christmas Dinner special

[Griegecurtains]

I need ideas on how to make Christmas dinner special. We have a roast every Sunday and always have roast potatoes, roast veg, cauliflower cheese, I'm sort of worried our Christmas dinner will be just like any other week.

What makes it stand out for you?

We eat our Xmas meal at 5pm, so I do a buffet for lunch, and that’s their favourite meal of the day. I don’t know why I bother making a full roast meal. I think in the future I’ll just do a buffet with slices of roast Turkey and pigs in blanket to save me the bother

Candles on the table
Pancetta in the veg
Pigs in blankets
Basically fire and cured pig meat! I get a floral decoration to go with said candle if I want to go all in!

Extra special gravy
Two types of stuffing, one spiced so very festive and a lot more effort than the norm
Cranberry sauce homemade
Sprouts, done really nicely with bacon, so not your average greeens

For us it’s all about the stuffing (great granny’s), the gravy (Gordon Ramsey’s) and the sprouts (whatever takes my fancy)

Crackers!
Pigs in blankets (lots of homemade ones)
Cranberry sauce
A Christmas pudding brought flaming to the table (someone needs to switch the lights off just before)
And obviously nice Christmassy napkins, etc.
Proper gravy, made in the roasting tin. If for a whole turkey, simmer the giblets the day before with onion and some fresh sage, to make a good stock.

We always have ours at around 5-6, rather than lunchtime - people are that much more ready for it.

How would it be if, given you have the Sunday roast every weekend, the Christmas meal itself was something totally different? A mixed seafood platter with hot and cold items? A Chinese or Indian mixed buffet? And it's kept a secret until the day what it is.

Or, everyone gets to make one course for Xmas dinner (depending how old they are obviously) so everyone has a stake in the proceedings?

We did an entire side of salmon one year with loads of veg and potatoes and it was LUSH.

I always try to decorate the table nicely, also crackers, and Christmas music playing in the background.

We start the day with a glass of bucks fizz and that (with semi regular top ups) makes the day pass in a happy glow...

More seriously though, smart table settings, nice/matching/fancy serving dishes, nice napkins, candles, the 'good' plates and glasses, and crackers of course.

We have indoor sparklers and play games/quizzes between courses.
we don’t have cauli cheese or Yorkshires, but have pigs in blankets, bread sauce, stuffing and sprout gratin which we don’t have with a standard roast. We also do maple roast parsnips and carrots to make them extra special. We also have champagne instead of wine.

Give the roasts a rest for November/December? You could have lovely slow cooked stews & casseroles instead, or chops, or something veggie, & by Christmas Day you'd be really fancying a roast?

Plus it would save you a fortune - handy on the run up.

I wouldn't do a roast for Christmas.

My DC are late teens/ young adults and we usually cook something together.

Previously things that have been a hit:
Moroccan Lamb Tangine with couscous.

Goulash with mash potato vegetables
Pork tender loins in a cremy mushroom & mustard sauce with pasta and lambs lettuce (with orange & pomegranate dressing)
Baked cheese for starters and often a homemade cheesecake for afters.

Honestly, the thing that sets Christmas aside from an every Sunday roast is the company!

However, there are certain things we pretty much only do at Christmas...

A starter, usually involving seafood.
Turkey!
Braised red cabbage
Pigs in blankets
Christmas pudding
Mince pies
The world's biggest cheeseboard with a glass or two of port.
Liqueurs after dinner (Cointreau for me!)

All the sides that turn the usual roast into a feast!

Starting with champagne

Homemade stuffing
Red cabbage
Cranberry sauce
Bread sauce
Maple mustard parsnips
Pigs in blankets
Sprouts with chestnuts
Nicer-than-usual wine

For over a decade, I cooked Christmas Dinner for assorted elderly relatives, some of them of the grumpy brigade, and their elderly friends. Over time I learned exactly what they liked. Real Yorkshire puddings, tender meat, with a wide variety of veg, and my homemade stuffing. Home made Christmas pudding with plenty brandy cream. My husband collected most of them in the car. On Christmas Day, I rarely cooked turkey, and it tended to be either leg of lamb or a really good quality beef joint. My secret ingredient, however, was wine. A copious amount of decent wine will solve a lot of potential problems. Obviously crackers too, and no excuses not to wear the hats. I encouraged lots of reminiscences and laughs. I used to drive our now happily half cut guests home while they could still walk, while my husband started on the washing up. They all seemed to really enjoy Christmas day and when I'd taken them all home I felt free to have a drink or two myself.

Now that all of these elderly relatives are either housebound or dead I am happy that I gave them a few good Chistmas meals while they could enjoy them.

I grew up having a roast every week, here are the things we had/still have that we only really had for Christmas dinner:
Pigs in blankets + roasted veg roasted with chutney
Cranberry sauce
Bread sauce
Dauphinoise potatoes

I wouldn't cook a roast for a month beforehand.

Canapes and a drink an hour beforehand.
A couple of different types of stuffing.
Bread sauce.
Cranberry sauce.
Roast potatoes cooked in butter.

What more do you need?!

We used to have roast every Sunday too, for Christmas my Dad would do extras, like a fancy stuffing (cranberry and chestnut was fave) as well as she usual sage and onion, pigs in blankets we didn't have any other time of year, he might do an extra veg that we didn't have often like mashed butternut squash. It was hard because my brother is autistic and very resistant to change and a fussy eater, as long as we still had all the things he liked my Dad could add in some little things we liked, Nobody really liked turkey and it was too much for the four or six (grandparents) we usually had. So fussy brother would have chicken and the rets of us had my favourite; duck.

As others have said, it helps to ban Sunday roasts in December so you can really look forward to Christmas Day.
We wouldn't have stuffing, pigs in blankets, parsnips, roast ham or cranberry sauce with any other roast dinner so that makes it special - plus all the decorating of the table and the Desserts.

Having it on Christmas Eve, by candle light. Christmas carols playing in the background.

I don’t do a Sunday roast during December so we are well ready for the “Big Dinner!” on the 25th! We have a cooked lunch on the advent (?);Sundays, but something like sausage traybake or a lamb hotpot, maybe a pie.
This makes sure that the Christmas Day dinner is special.

The extras to a roast I have on Xmas Dinner is spiced red cabbage, sprouts and bacon, pigs in blankets and I honey roast the parsnips and carrots and don't always on a roast. I don't eat meat so that's fake bacon with sprouts but I'd imagine meat eaters would have a more lavish meat option on Xmas day than the usual Sunday roast.

My aunt and uncle do this. They have a roast every Sunday normally, but through December they have something different each Sunday so by the time Christmas arrives they are really looking forward to it. They also take turns to plan the alternative Sunday December meals so that's become a tradition in itself!

We often have a roast on a Sunday, we are having one today but the things we only do for Christmas Dinner are:

Pigs in blankets
Two types of stuffing
Roast potatoes cooked in beef dripping. We normally just use oil.
Honey roast parsnips.
An expensive bottle of wine. It's the one time of year I'll happily spend £20 on a bottle of wine to drink at home.

I stop roasting a month before Christmas, makes you really want that Christmas roast lol xx