Three small kids and no Christmas expectations - what should we eat?

[mumofboysinlondon]

Just for fun:

DH and I have three kids under 5 and it will be just the five of us on Christmas Day this year. None of us really love a traditional roast and we’re relishing the opportunity to do something a bit different.

The kids are various levels of fussy but I’m not too worried, they’ll sort of pick at anything.

I’m leaning towards a fabulous seafood platter but I’m not sure I can be bothered with the faff of doing multiple elements.

What shall we eat?

In previous years we've just bought loads of bits from m&s and just eaten it throughout the day whilst playing with the kids, no prep, just shove it in the oven with some ready made pasta salads etc, yummy! Far too busy playing to get cooking 😀

We all had pizza one year, was great!
Everyone had what they wanted.
Very little time spent in the kitchen.
The rest of the time free to play with toys and watch TV.

This is a great idea.

When my DC were young, we had steak, and they had their favourite pasta.

Best Christmas dinner we ever had was when our oven decided to pack in so we ate our Boxing Day buffet snacks on the 25th instead. Bloody marvellous!

This year we just can't be bothered with the whole roast for Christmas.
So we just gonna have a buffet style Christmas.
3 children have asd so only have a limited amount of safe foods they will actually eat and none of them like a roast.
Pasta will be on the menu they all like pasta.
So our menu is
Pesto pasta
Macaroni cheese
Plain pasta
More to be a added but what I don't know

In Covid when it was just us and the kids we had rack of lamb and dauphinoise potatoes. Bit special but dead easy.

Excellent suggestion. YUM.

My mum makes the best lasagna so we had that one year. We've also had pizza and steak.

Partner and I bought seafood from m&s last year and it was underwhelming. I'd maybe adapt and buy a dressed crab, cooked prawns, smoked salmon to go with nice bread and nibbles. But I wouldn't bother with their platter again.

Yes this was exactly what I was thinking, although I’d want everything to be prepped for me so there’s nothing to do on the day.

We're Jewish and eat Chinese food xmas eve/xmas day. Not posh refined Chinese - bog standard Cantonese. Kids love it and I've started inviting friends who want to escape the chaos of inlaws etc. Strongly recommend!