What day are you doing christmas food shop?

[BrieAndChilli]

Keep seeing loads of articles saying to do christmas food shop 15/16/17th!!! surely that is too early?
What day is everyone thinking of doing it this year? I was going to go 5am on the 23rd but if everyone is doing it earliler I might too!!!

Tuesday night Ocado delivery and then Wednesday I’m getting the meat order from M&S at 7.30am so will get any last minute/not delivered bits then but as it’s just another roast dinner and picky bits I don’t think it will be an issue

Late evening on 23rd. I'm not massively fussy about what we get (I already have the beef wellington for xmas day in the freezer) but honestly I have never found anywhere has run out of anything even on xmas eve.

Im working xmas eve and the day before. So going Saturday to get the majority. Then Monday morning to pick up a butchers Hamper n last minute bits.

I’ve bought all my cupboard stuff and anything that is frozen or can freeze like trimmings. I have a delivery coming on the afternoon of the 23rd and I plan on going to get any extra or out of stock things on Christmas Eve.

I agree an early shop is pointless. The meat and veg will rot.

Early as I can manage on the 24th - not because I'm worried per se, but because I'm all out of energy for being around people. We are away Sunday to Tuesday, so need to do it then.
Long life things such as crackers and Baileys have already been bought, so it's veg and a piece of meat, so basics like bread, milk and cream.

Sainsburys click and collect booked for 23rd. Anything we can’t get I’ll go in on Xmas eve, with a hangover as I’m going out.

Went to a Marks on 24th a few years ago and couldnt get any pigs. Not a single packet. Was shocked. Learnt my lesson. Go earlier now.

No UK supermarket on Christmas eve is as bad as a Viennese supermarket on every single Saturday at 6pm

It's fine

That said I'm getting a Waitrose delivery

It’s not too early for anything that’s going on the freezer!
I’ll get turkey, roasties (I don’t make them from scratch), prawns and anything for the freezer or no perishable over the next few days.
Fresh veg and salad for prawn cocktails I’ll get on Christmas eve

Sainsburys booked for eve of 22nd. early morning 23rd will go out very early in morning and get a few party bits from Aldi and then that’s it. Keeping things simple this year as we have just had 2 big birthday parties to host so feeling a bit parties out.

I have no idea! I have pre-ordered the turkey crown and will collect that on the 23rd.
I've been picking up non-perishables over the last couple of weeks or so.
I hadn't been to Sainsbury's for a while so when I did go I got a £4 off £40 voucher - twice! So I bought some booze in that shop.

We're actually having our little (3 people) meal on the 27th as DS1 gets back from travelling on the 26th. I reckon I can go out on Boxing Day and get it all dead cheap.

Can I get all the cheeses now? Will they be ok in the fridge until Christmas day?

tesco are coming on 19th and for everything else there’s a farm shop up the road

@Whatacrapdaytodaywashey yes, I’ve had the cheese in for a while and it’s very long dated. And even with the dates js cheese so until it’s open I think the dates are a guide not a target.

Sainsburys for main shop on 22nd. M&S for extras on 24th

All ready have the meat. Just the veg to get. On Monday 22nd We are divide and conquer. I’m risking my life to go to the high street m&s after work, at lunchtime to pick up some baking potatoes because quite frankly they are the best around for roasties.. my mum works in a supermarket and will be picking the rest of it up when she’s finished.

Snap! 6pm slot.

Some point on the 23rd, turkey from the butchers on 24th. I don’t need much more than what we need for Christmas/Boxing Day and can usually get it all in the local supermarket. I’m trying to be very zen about it all this year.

Sorry to crash off topic. But people who get supermarket deliveries do you tip the driver? Ours is coming on the 23rd

23rd. Don’t eat meat so no big joint to buy, most treats bought over the last month, not hosting a lot this year so should be fairly straightforward. Just veggies mainly and the last of the snacks!

Usual boring household shop on Saturday 20th, the Christmas “free” shop arriving Sun 21st ( used my years worth of Clubcard vouchers, so that’s all the nice bits, alcohol etc in that delivery) and odds and ends probably Tuesday 23rd.

Xmas Eve. Whole thing ordered and all I have to do is pick it up. I'll pop into the store (you pick up the catering part in a tent in the car park) to get anything I may have forgotten or decided I need. But it's very stress free!

I used to love the food shopping in the run up to Christmas when I was a kid (1970's). Always lived in a village so there was no supermarket, just a parade of independent shops.

The week before I would go with my Ddad to the off-licence to pick up the booze (having alcohol at home was not the norm in those days).
Haig whiskey, Advocate, Martini, Cinzano, Stones ginger wine, a Cream sherry, Dekyper cherry brandy and of course a Watneys Party Four or Party Seven.

Christmas Eve morning I would go with my Dmum to collect the pre-ordered food.
Chicken, beef, pork and a huge slab of sausage meat from the butchers (none of us liked turkey).
Vegetables from the green grocers.
Any other requirements from the village store.
A chocolate Yule-log and a couple of crusty loaves from the bakers.
The Christmas cake, mince pies, pudding etc we're all home made.

In about 1979 I got an after school PT job at the same butchers (washing, cleaning, sweeping etc) and loved the run-up to Christmas with people placing orders, the huge deliveries resulting in the cold store being rammed to capacity and then on the 23rd & 24th, everyone coming in to collect their orders.
Oddly enough, in my early 20's I turned veggie!

Christmas shopping was never quite the same in the 80's when a Tesco opened up nearby.
Cheaper of course but was it really more convenient? Certainly the magic was no-longer there and of course the independent shops closed/were repurposed over the years.

I'm not, Ocardo booked for 22/12.

I have exactly those memories of the 70s, (and earlier) @Nourishinghandcream - with the addition of an autumn trip to the turkey farm to choose our live turkey. Which my father would then pick up a couple of days before Christmas. It would have been plucked and trimmed (with the innards in a little plastic bag) but still needed the skin to be singed and any remaining feathers and quills and detritus carefully removed. Sometimes it was too big for the fridge (or the fridge was already too full of Christmas food) so it would have to sit in the garage overnight. Couldn’t be outside proper because of the danger of cats or foxes or whatever.

I definitely recall my father being wonderfully excited by Christmas preparations, returning from work every evening with armfuls of wrapped gifts or food or news about who (after consultation with my mother) he’d invited to spend the day with us.

And all the buying was necessary because sometimes everything (except the little corner shop) would be closed for a week from Christmas Eve, only opening briefly on December 31st so people could stock up on drink for NY. So families shopped as if for a siege.

Christmas really changed when supermarkets started being open from Boxing Day. And then we watched, open mouthed with wonder, as the Boxing Day Sale at big department stores became A Thing. People queuing overnight for spectacular savings; people actually fighting over fridges and Hoovers … (With a news reporter and camera person conveniently on hand to observe.) We began by feeling outraged for the poor shop workers forced to lose their holidays. Held our noses at the greed of people wanting yet more stuff. Then shrugged our shoulders and eventually joined in.

No more stocking up with enough food for two weeks. I haven’t visited a turkey farm for more than fifty years (I don’t even eat meat now). But it’s really not the same now …