First time hosting Xmas dinner - where to begin?!

[Notascoobie]

Help needed please - me and my husband are hosting Xmas dinner for the first time this year as we finally live somewhere large enough to accommodate family staying a couple of nights. We have wanted to host for ages so are super excited but where to begin?! How does everyone work out how much to buy in portion wise? And any obvious tips for how to manage the cooking with hosting duties? We have two young children and aunties will be on hand to entertain but still...

thanks in advance

It’s 6 adults with leftovers. The kids won’t need much. So I’d do a turkey crown and roast beef. For Christmas Eve do a big ham and keep half of it sliced in the fridge for the Christmas Day sandwiches (teatime obvs).

Stuffing made ahead of time, breakfast, keep it simple with frozen pastries you can just throw in the oven in the morning before the turkey goes in. Double the amount of pigs in blankets you think you’ll need and make your Christmas cake this weekend 😊

Oh and cheese. Forgot the bloody cheese! Get loads of the stuff, nice crackers, olives, grapes, berries, chutney and pickled onions. Wheel it out every evening!

One of the best tips I've ever been given is to slightly cook carrots, sprouts, parsnips a day or so before, put them into a heatproof serving dish and cover with foil, On the day, when the oven's hot for the roasties, put these into the oven too, they will finish cooking and be ready for the table with no dirty pans. Put a knob of butter with them too.

I always cook a gammon ham on Xmas Eve then there is cold cuts for Boxing day. A turkey crown is not hard to cook, layer it up with smoked streaky bacon to hold butter on and put foil over it to stop it becoming dry. Make sure all guests like turkey. I buy a large turkey crown to feed 8 and I need to feed 5. That means there is plenty for everyone and will be some to carve cold on Boxing day. Buy pigs in blankets ready made. Prep all vegetables on Xmas Eve. Ensure plenty of wine and alcohol and mixers and soft drinks for kids. Have frozen snacks like mini quiches, spicy wedges, chicken dippers etc for Boxing day buffet with turkey and gammon sandwiches. Get a good cheese platter and cracker box and I pick up frozen desserts like a lemon cheesecake and a raspberry pavlova. Add chocolate fingers and cherry tomatoes

Do you actually want to cook it or just heat it through?

Depending on how many people you have find out what size turkey you'll want. DH does that and multiplies it by God knows how many so there's leftovers until new year.

Sides,again depends on how many, sprouts for DH and DSonIL, carrots, broccoli, red cabbage with bacon . Bread sauce and cranberry sauce on the side. We also do the bacon from the turkey and pigs in blankets.

You are right. And tbh I think PiL are just happy they get to have a Xmas morning where they get to see grandkids excited about stockings etc so need to remind myself of this.

I am going to do a trial run of the frozen par boiled potatoes over next couple of weeks because for me - that's the most important part of a roast dinner! If I can get that right, then everything else can be covered in gravy as someone said, and sloshed back with booze....

All these comments have been so useful. So much advice. Really appreciate it. I'll take any more tips you have!

It’s all about the memories and traditions. My kids aren’t little anymore but our house has always been full of people and they love the memories of grandparents, cousins and aunties and uncles etc being there over Christmas. Make sure there’s loads of booze, cheese and Christmas cake and plenty of meat and you can’t go wrong.

I’m not religious as such but Carols from Kings are always playing Christmas morning in the background and the kids bloody love it. We go upbeat as the day goes on 🤣

Write down a sheet of your timings working backwards.

E.g.

Xpm = Serve/eat
X.30pm = Turkey out
Xpm = Potatoes in
Xpm = Turkey in
etc.

Then just for each part, prep as much of it in advanced as you can. So that on the day you are basically just cooking what you have prepared, and following your time sheet.

(Also buy desert options.. my experience is that people love bought puddings as much, if not more than home-made ones... so use your effort on the actually food, then put down a range of lovely pre-made Christmas deserts, chocolatey, fruity, mince pies, puddings, and no one will care at all that you bought them all and didn't do everything from scratch all the time)

To make my life easier when hosting I've previously bought a ready stuffed turkey crown. I find the crown easier to cook (and carve) than a whole bird and it then also sorts the stuffing element.

I can worry about getting the roast potatoes right and the ready made ones from COOK that come frozen are absolutely excellent. So I have bought those in the past too.

Cook the turkey first and then double wrap it in foil and leave it to rest while you then have the oven free to do the potatoes, parsnips and pigs in blankets. Extra stuffing balls if you fancy them. I'd forget cauliflower cheese and Yorkshire puddings (despite loving them both) if hosting for a large crowd because they're just one more thing to do.

Make some spiced red cabbage any time from now and freeze it then you can microwave from frozen on the day. You can also easily steam sprouts in the microwave.

Buy the pouches of turkey gravy from M&S and just heat it up in a pan.

Buy a pudding. We keep it traditional and just do Christmas pudding and custard because everyone likes it. Turkey sandwiches for dinner if anyone wants them.

Ply everyone with booze and nobody will care anyway!

I never bother with a starter on Christmas Day. There is loads of food anyway. I tend to just put nibbles out.....bowls of crisps and nuts so nobody is going to go hungry. Or buy some trays of those little smoked salmon and cream cheese canapes and get your 6 year old to walk round with them on a tray and "serve" the adults. Our 8 and 6 year olds love doing that at Christmas because it makes them feel special and grown up.

Think about easy food for the other days. I'd focus on having a good selection of cheese, boxes of crackers, grapes, a couple of pates and some part baked baguettes. That's an easy lunch or table of snacks for people to help themselves.

Bacon sandwiches or those frozen pastries you cook in the oven for easy breakfasts.

If you have a slow cooker, do slow cooked gammon in cola because it just looks after itself. Shred it up and serve it in bread rolls on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day.

Get everyone to bring alcohol because that's where the cost of hosting can really add up.

A large amount of gravy.

That’s always my first step!

Make as much as possible in advance and freeze it………..pigs in blankets, stuffing, and anything else that you’ll be serving that can be frozen. Prepared vegetables a couple of days before……carrots, sprouts, cauliflower will all keep in bags in the salad draw and not suffer, but be wary with parsnips as they can be a bit funky I find and potatoes will blacken. But the more you can pre-prepare the better.
And remember, it’s really only a Sunday dinner with a bit more ‘fancy nancy” bits added in.
Most importantly, don’t get stressed and remember to have fun.

I agree with PP about pre-preparing/freezing as much as you can beforehand - so make sure you’ve gone through your freezer to clear out as much space as you can! Either by throwing out stuff that’s been in there for too long, using up stuff now that needs to be eaten or just generally sorting out the drawers so you’re making most use of the space.

I always make a spreadsheet for the days I have anyone staying - even if it’s only one more guest, it’s a time of the year when we all eat together, whereas usually we eat separately (2 adult DC in the house who have different work patterns). We also tend to eat breakfasts and/or desserts over Christmas, which we don’t normally do, so I like to plan what those meals will involve and then cook as many of those things in advance as I can - e.g. home-made soup for lunch, which can go in the freezer. I make something like a lasagne or a fish pie for Christmas Eve dinner, and I make two lots of vanilla ice-cream which means I can take the ice-cream bowl out of the freezer (where it normally lives), as two cartons of ice-cream take up less space than the bowl.

Oh, and I book a table for lunch somewhere local for Boxing Day! That’s my treat, so I’m not cooking yet another meal. (If you’re going to do that you may need to book it now - many places are already fully booked).

👌Top tip.

One thing I do not see a lot of on here is allocating out the dishes, so everyone brings a couple plus drinks. I am not hosting but am already planning ahead to our contributions to various Christmas meals- hams, salads, desserts. Baked ham is a good one to outsource as it’s not complicated, doesn’t have to be served very hot and fresh but takes a lot of oven space. Ditto desserts can be time consuming.
one of the things I take is mixed lollies dish, use some stacked Christmas dishes and scatter a range of stuff in it, some years it’s got homemade meringues and Christmas cookies, other years it’s all shop stuff, bullets and fruit jubes and liquorice allsorts and apricot chews and dark chocolate pastilles and marshmallows and m&ms and something nicer eg if not homemade Ferrero rochers in the top stack, and it always gets completely eaten. And if hosting you have it set up in a cupboard and whisk it out.

My two pieces of advice:

buy a meat thermometer if you are cooking a turkey. It brings much-needed peace of mind

and if you’re cooking a whole turkey do it early - you can wrap it in foil with a few clean teacloths over it then It can rest for at least one hour happily staying snug. In that hour you have plenty of time to finish roasting veg, make gravy and enjoy your starter!

It’s been mentioned a couple of times already, but it’s important so I’ll say it again.

Rest the meat!!

It’s really important to wait a while before carving. If it sits for 45 minutes on the side it will be so much more succulent and juicy.

It also means that your oven is freed up for all the other things. When I started hosting I was trying to get everything to finish cooking at the same time, then up to the table. So this was a game changer.

My other piece of advice is to get some post its and pull out your dishes and just do a little play-act of what’s going in what dish in the oven, or what pan on the hob, and into what dish for serving. I know you could work it out in your head, but when you’re actually handling dishes, you can see the reality that you’ll only get 3 dishes not 4 in the oven because they’re a tiny bit bigger than you thought. Or you need a shallower dish to use all three shelves of the oven. And you’ve been imagining using the same jug to serve milk, custard and gravy. There’s no need to wait until Christmas Day to find that out!!

I’d also add check you have enough crockery/cutlery etc in advance now. I realised last November we didn’t have a gravy boat (for family we just spoon from the pan at the hob) but obviously had enough time to buy one.

If you have a proper dining room where you don’t need to eat breakfast, or can outsource breakfast pastries to laps in the living room or whatever, get the table laid/decorated on Christmas Eve. My mum always used to get DSis and I to do it, and we thought it was a huge treat, but as an adult I can see it was a way to tick a job off and keep us quiet, but I still do it now and it makes a huge difference to my mental mood knowing the room looks exactly as I want it to, but I don’t have to spend time doing it on the day.

My family do this every year. Host does some of the cooking. We all bring a dish - my stepson does the beef, for example, my DiL's BiL always does the cauliflower cheese, host usually does the turkey etc. Hotplates for food, everyone serves themselves (not small DC). We sit around 20 including some small children all at one long table (white cloths cover the fact it is several tables levelled with boarding). Drinks for everyone (who is not driving) helps a lot. Games after - we like a game of chance where you roll dice for prizes, first to win unwraps gift so everyone can see it, then next roller gets to choose from the presents, including those already 'won' so it's a constant shifting of gifts, with challenges, till new ones run out. It's fun.

I do a menu in advance for all the meals over the period. This forms the basis for the shopping list. I have a detailed timing sheet on xmas morning which I am relaxed about sticking to. I have older children who can help now, and I'm sure the other adults at your house will be happy to help too - I don't particularly like being in the kitchen on my own while all the fun is happening in the other room.

I think you need to remember it's just one day and it's just a roast lunch (with crackers) (in fact don't forget the crackers)

I've been doing it for many years now, so do pick my dishes from different book. Boxing day is my day to try new dishes. I always intend to cook in advance but never do - I don't have a massive freezer anyway - and this has never been a problem for me.

Do as much in advance as possible. Do potatoes in goose fat and make sure it is really hot when you put them in. Buy good quality gravy and then add some port to it and redcurrant jelly and it will be fab. Do all veg day before. I never do starters but do loads of sausage rolls etc to have before lunch. Also try and each lunch a bit later say 3 as it gives you more time to enjoy presents in the morning. Do pastries for Christmas breakfast. Make some soup to keep in the freezer for boxing day lunch if you need it. If do a slow cooked ham on Christmas eve and serve it with bread, salads etc very easy. Definitely cheese!!

Lists, lists and more lists. Write a menu for the day, work out what things you can cook ahead and freeze - I freeze home made stuffing (makes stuffing the bird very easy in Christmas Eve), braised red cabbage, breadcrumbs for bread sauce (if you are making your own - I do, but the packet stuff is pretty good).

I do as much as I can on Christmas Eve - peel the potatoes, sprouts and parsnips, and keep them fresh in cold water over night, then make the gravy and bread sauce, and the brandy butter for the pudding - I used to spend hours making and boiling a home made pudding, but the bought ones are perfect.

I also sit down and work out the timings for the day - start with the bird, and work out how long that will take to roast, then rest, and then work out when the roasties and parsnips need to go in. You can put them in early, get them out when they are nearly done, then whack them back in for the last 10-15 minutes, to heat through - I do that, and they are fine.

M&S everything if you can afford it and ask guests to bring all the alcohol they would like to drink.

When I was cooking for more than just two people, I cooked everything in foil trays/dishes. Meat and potatoes, any vegetables prepared before the day, i.e. swede, parsnips, I roasted and put into foil trays ready to be reheated, stuffing also.

Once the meal was over, I generally just had plates, bowls and cutlery to wash up (no dishwasher) gravy boat and glasses.

The used foil dishes were then binned.

Ohhh yes - foil dishes for roasting things, stuffing etc are a godsend, @Myblueclematis!