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Original poster

Xmas day cooking disasters

127 replies

Empress13 · 05/12/2025 22:24

We always have the illusion that a perfect dinner will be served on Xmas Day but the reality can be so different! On a light hearted note tell us your Xmas Day cooking disasters. I always remember the time my SIL’s oven gave up the ghost in the middle of roasting the Turkey she had to finish it in her sister’s oven !

OP posts:
CraftyGin · 06/12/2025 12:38

These stories are hilarious, although disastrous at the time. I have literally been laughing out loud at some of them.

Last year, we didn't have any food disasters (that I remember), but about 20 minutes before plating up, my phone started to go crazy. The security alarm was going off at church. It wouldn't let me fix it from my phone so I had to get in the car and sort it in person.

When I got home about half and hour later, the finishing touches were being put on the table. I missed that last dash of chaos, and was remarkably chilled.

Zippedydodah · 06/12/2025 13:02

Several over the years

  • 8 hour power cut at 11.00 on Christmas Day with everything in the oven
  • the cows got out, everyone abandoned the dinner table to help but no one shut the dining room door….. two dogs had an absolute blast. Visit to vet cost upwards of £700 20 years ago.
  • BIL arrived drunk, threw up all over the kitchen floor
  • Bloody SIL announced she was vegan now so couldn’t eat anything except the Brussels sprouts and peas. Then spent the rest of the day sulking.
Little happens nowadays because I happily have Christmas with just DH and the dogs.
boulevardofbrokendreamss · 06/12/2025 13:26

My mum forgot to put the bird in the oven. I went onto the balcony at some point to get more drinks in and there it was. It was a very LATE lunch!

CraftyGin · 06/12/2025 13:30

Zippedydodah · 06/12/2025 13:02

Several over the years

  • 8 hour power cut at 11.00 on Christmas Day with everything in the oven
  • the cows got out, everyone abandoned the dinner table to help but no one shut the dining room door….. two dogs had an absolute blast. Visit to vet cost upwards of £700 20 years ago.
  • BIL arrived drunk, threw up all over the kitchen floor
  • Bloody SIL announced she was vegan now so couldn’t eat anything except the Brussels sprouts and peas. Then spent the rest of the day sulking.
Little happens nowadays because I happily have Christmas with just DH and the dogs.

This reminds me of when DS came home on Christmas Eve and announced he was vegetarian. He brought his girlfriend who was Jewish.

Now, I love planning in the vegetarian food, and it's the one time in the year I can get DH to eat vegetarian. We do the fully turkey thing on Christmas Day, but will be veggie on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day (with leftovers).

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 06/12/2025 14:31

One year we ( DSis. DBro and I) rolled up to parents house to find my Mum ( who was never a fan of cleaning or organised ) hadn't done any beds and even worse decided to fill the oven with noxious cleaning spray and Leave It to dry .

She had this Oh everyone can muck in attitude which basically meant "Oh where are you all going to sleep. there's some sheets somewhere "
The oven was manky but I'd have cooked in it ( I was doing the cooking ) but I had to soften and wash this cleaner off and make sure it wasn't hoaching with fumes . Happy Days Hmm

jetlag92 · 06/12/2025 16:08

One year my MIL decided to turn off the oven in the middle of the turkey cooking as she decided it was done. It wasn't. We ate very late and she is no longer allowed in the kitchen.

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 06/12/2025 16:23

Oh God, I'm trying to expunge the memory...

I was turning the roast potatoes but had to get them out of the oven and put them on the top to have enough space. In doing so I spilled a load of the goose fat they were roasting in just outside the oven. So I was turning the potatoes with a pool of goose grease setting on the floor and I decided to turn the chicken over before I cleared up.

Put the potatoes back in, stepped in to take the chicken out, slid in the spilled grease, chicken went down on the floor together with all the pigs in blankets. I scooped it all back up and shoved it back in the oven reasoning that the heat would kill the germs and just hoped nobody would notice. Then I had to chisel the set grease off the floorboards.

Nobody died, or even noticed. I reasoned that it was actually their fault, because if someone had been around to help, it might not have happened...

MissNowt · 06/12/2025 16:58

My ex DMIL liked a drink. Trifle for pud but she’d just put the cubes of jelly on top of the cake - hadn’t dissolved it or anything. Never let her forget it. 🤣🤣🤣

ednaclouda · 06/12/2025 17:02

NoTouch · 06/12/2025 00:09

Not so much cooking but meal related , we travelled 500 miles in Christmas Eve traffic to spend Christmas Day with MIL from hell. She previous suggested instead of cooking we got an Indian takeaway from a nice Indian restaurant near her. Asked serveral times if definitely open on Christmas Day she said she knew owners and it was,

Got nervous when she hadn’t phoned but kept saying it was ok, she then phoned and found it was shut, we tried a few others but nothing. So we had a weird concoction from her cupboards (she had nothing Christmassy in) around 9pm which included backed beans. Dh has a row with her, I went to bed and we drove home early next day.

OP I would have been livid nothing christmassy in food wise wow

SisterTeatime · 06/12/2025 17:06

I’ve mentioned this before on here and it wasn’t as bad as some others but my DM is terrible for using out of date food. Christmas 2023 we were enjoying the Christmas pudding and DM said oh yes I’ve had this one for a while, it was best before 2018. Took the shine off it a bit. The worst thing is she will certainly have bought one that year which she will probably serve in 2035 or something.

climbintheback · 06/12/2025 17:11

DH swallowed a red hot stuffing ball and we had to do the Heimlich procedure but before we new what was happening he jumped up and staggered backwards onto the sofa and almost squished the new grandchild!

ednaclouda · 06/12/2025 17:13

jetlag92 · 06/12/2025 16:08

One year my MIL decided to turn off the oven in the middle of the turkey cooking as she decided it was done. It wasn't. We ate very late and she is no longer allowed in the kitchen.

i hope you gave her the washing up to do

PleaseAccepyMyUserNames · 06/12/2025 17:18

Our cat and dog ate the Xmas day beef joint one year that had been left on the floor by the door out of the way 😂 pretty sure I was already vegetarian at that point so I didn't care!

Inextremis · 06/12/2025 17:34

My lovely Mum died suddenly in November 1986 - just after she'd bought a 21lb turkey. I'd never cooked a turkey before, but took over the Christmas cooking for my devastated Dad, my even more devastated grandmother (Mum's mum), who lived with us in a granny flat, and my (not at all devastated, she and Mum didn't always get on) aunt (Dad's sister) who lived nearby. On the day my aunt and my gran fell out with each other, gran said she didn't want dinner as a result, Dad was too traumatised by Mum's death to function enough to sort the argument out. An additional issue was that gran always cooked the roast potatoes in her oven - so I suddenly had to do those too, whilst trying to calm the whole situation down (I'm an only child). Eventually managed to persuade gran to come eat with us - and despite my lack of experience, the food turned out OK. It was only the next day, when slicing turkey for a salad, that I discovered the giblets, in a plastic bag, still inside it. I told no-one. They lived for several (many, in Dad's case) years after that :)

Thinking back, it helped get me through the grief of losing Mum - too many other people to worry about!

merryhouse · 06/12/2025 17:46

The year my dad helpfully cleared away

...the Veggie Alternative

Fortunately there was enough of everything left to make more (it had only been done early to get it out of the way) so it just became The Thing We Mention Every Year for the next 3 decades😄

Simonjt · 06/12/2025 18:34

I’ve only ever made them at community centres, the meat would depend on what was available and could feed enough people. One year there were some great reduced legs of lamb so we bought a few and put them in the freezer. Early christmas morning we discovered they were too big for the oven, it was just a free standing household oven, not a catering one. So I got and cleaned some loppers so I could cut the end of the bone off. I managed to slip, the leg of lamb flew up, hit me in the head and knocked me out. The CCTV was brilliant. I ended up with a very impressive black eye.

Another year we had a new volunteer who had quite a strong personality and claimed to be a chef, she was adamant no one else would have to assist her in cooking dinners for 150 people. It turns out she had been the cook in a childrens nursery. So she had cooked for a maximum of 18 toddlers. We aimed to start serving at 12, we ended up starting at six after she finally relented and accepted she really didn’t know best.

Sharptonguedwoman · 06/12/2025 18:37

Stompythedinosaur · 06/12/2025 00:15

We still speak in hushed tones about The Year The Dog Ate The Beef Joint.

😂😂😂

AlwaysRightISwear · 06/12/2025 18:44

Some of the disasters were clearly your DDogs' Best Christmas Ever.

skyscrapersinging · 06/12/2025 18:44

Covid year we ordered a duck to be delivered a couple of days before Xmas day, supposedly well within use by date. When we opened it up and took it out of packaging it was clearly off. Slightly green inside, stank to high heaven. There was no other meat in the house or even freezer to substitute for it. We had a lunch of sides and stuffing balls! A fitting end to 2020.

AlwaysRightISwear · 06/12/2025 18:47

My DM once bought a fancy pudding from the butcher which had to.be steamed. She boiled it instead and turned it into an inedible sodden mess. Even the birds turned it on the bird table for weeks and we had to scrape it off. Luckily we had a space microwaveablesupermarket one in he cupboard

MellersSmellers · 06/12/2025 19:07

Bought a free range bronze turkey at huge expense but didn't have enough room in the fridge for it so put it outside the back door. Next morning I saw it mauled in the flowerbed - a fox had got into the walled/fenced garden. We had a reduced battery farmed bird from sainsburys instead.

gogomomo2 · 06/12/2025 19:12

Second oven mostly failed (gas flow regulator or something) despite only being 2 years old, was Easter not Christmas but still had a houseful, meant the lamb that should have been half cooked was only barely warm, switched it to the other oven which thankfully wasn’t playing up then played juggle the trays, used microwave, hob cooked certain things and did you know you can finish stuffing and also vegan nut roasts off under a grill!

InTheCludgie · 06/12/2025 19:25

First Xmas in our first house and we had no oven. We were given a George Foreman grill as a housewarming gift so DH decided to try and cook the dinner on it.
Kinda worked out ok but we pretty much murdered George in the process, it never worked right after that and the house stank of stuffing for three days after as DH stuck a block of frozen stuffing on the grill and it didn't end well...

Dogmum1983 · 06/12/2025 19:27

One Christmas morning i realised my fridge had been turned right down and the turkey which had been in there a couple of days was off stinking out my fridge !!! Then the next Xmas day my partner didn’t drain the water out of the potatoes and started to mash them with the water and adding butter …

then Covid hit and it was a disaster Xmas . I had to cook my parents dinner and my sons and get a taxi taking them to each house and by the time I got back home to mine we sat down . On a pasting table which my partner had put on a snow blanket and light some of those stick candles which fell over and set the blanket alight 🤣🤣 I wasn’t sure n the mood by this point lol !

I don’t think I should host Christmas 🤣🤣

Thesquaregiraffe · 06/12/2025 19:31

One Christmas when I was quite little we went to my grandparents for Christmas Day. They lived rurally and the way the house got its electric was via a small electricity pole out side on the corner of the road (this one small wooden pole delivered electricity to the whole row of houses). Anyway, this Christmas there was a big bang and a lot of fizzing and popping coming from the pole and as predicted the whole row of houses were left without power.

Christmas dinner ended up being chopped up into portions (turkey and all) and cooked on a camping stove until the electric was restored.

It was quite the conversation point while playing “Old Maid” and watching the Two Ronnies later that day 🤣

For context this was late 70’s early 80’s.