A ‘what will you do differently next year’ thread

[OMGitsnotgood]

I’ve been hosting Christmas for almost 40 years so generally have it pretty well sorted, but there is always something to imporove on.
This year I had a pretty hectic December for a combination of reasons, some of it unexpected. I did still manage most things but ended up doing a lot of cleaning on Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve, when I’d much rather have just had food prep to focus on them put my feet up enjoying a Baileys.

Next year I am going so make sure I do a deep clean early in December and keep on top of it.

@JoeTheDrummer me also 3 tubs for five !!

Stay home with just DP for company!

I always do this and it makes a huge difference.

This year I’ve started volunteering with a local youth drama group, which is great fun but means I have precious few free Saturdays, which meant I finished all the shopping extremely late. I’ll need to plan for that next year.

Im determined to have a change of scene next year as well, even if we just book for lunch at the local.

We don’t have starters in Christmas Day, preferring early morning bacon butties instead!

I think I’d prefer the deep clean earlier, before putting the decorations up. I embarrassed myself by the dust and cobwebs in places you don’t normally see. House isn’t ’trashed’ over Christmas, our kids are adults, so really it’s more of a surface tidy of paper etc after Christmas Day

Going to go away for Christmas to a hotel to escape the toxic extended family inevitably causing their usual drama and also the stress of cooking all on me. I love Christmas, but I’m over it this year.

Massively cut down on the catering this year to avoid the endless leftovers.

Big mistake, I am now missing the Christmassy leftovers.

Starting early is key I think, food prep, present buying/wrapping/ decorations etc. it’s all more enjoyable when relaxed rather than stressing near to Christmas, and protects against foreseen time pressures, which we had this year

Cancel it or go away to ignore it. I used to love Christmas but the last five had had problems connected with my partner's family or friends.

Had my first year of getting most of the buying and wrapping done in November and it did help when all the primary school stuff started. Ours seems to expect a lot from the parents and it made me less stressed being able to focus on that.

I buggered off to Vietnam solo - kid with dad for Xmas this year - can’t recommend enough!

I love this! Good for you!!! 🤩

Going on a cooking/menu prep strike and the lot of them can sort everything to do with all meals. I don't even care that it'll be a disaster.

PPs mentioning surplus tubs of gravy - can these be frozen ? If not, make some more roast potatoes and drown them in the gravy - delicious ! Or bubble and squeak with gravy.

Pay for a deep clean a week before worth every penny.Less cooking less expectation less stress.Rethink the food make it simple.Small thoughtful gifts and money for grandchildren.We always have a complicated treasure hunt with gold chocolate coins that is a must everyone enjoys it.Christmas Eve meal out.Chill out really not worth the stress.Thats my plan.

Buy a smaller turkey!
Cut down the ‘treat’ type foods by half - we have bookshelves in our house that have a box of chocolates on every shelf! 🐷

I did “less”. this year, less buying of unnecessary crap, less “must-have” food
( that we never eat) less meet-ups with people I rarely see… just less.

However in the end, I caught a foul cold on the 19th and we ended up managing with what we’d bought on earlier freezer stock-ups and supermarket deliveries.
We survived just fine! I don’t think DP noticed, we still ate pretty well, albeit more frozen food but it suited us. Doing Less is our plan for 2026😁

I slept a lot and he watched crap on tv, he did the bits of housework as needed and we walked the dog for fresh air so we were all happy.

HOWEVER….

DP has now caught the cold and the Dressing Gown of Doom is on…

Send Help!

We will probably host next year (didn't this year). I eat gluten free now, and I'm fed up with eating crappy shop-bought ultra-processed gf versions of things while everyone else has nice homemade stuff, so one thing I'm planning to do is try out gf recipes for Christmas things like pastry for mince pies, a yule log, stuffing etc. And good homemade gf bread, if such a thing really exists!

We split the hosting over 2 days which was much better (had one group one day and a different group the next day). Made the numbers more manageable.

I filled my own crackers which I swore I would never do again but everyone LOVED them (as they were all named and personalised) so maybe I will do it again (took ages though!)

we did one big turkey and one beef and that went down better than I thought

i bought the desserts this year - last year I made them - and don’t think I will make them again

we spent less on presents and more on hosting vs last year and I think it was worth it in the end

Usually I ask people in the family if they can do various things by a certain date. They invariable don't and I get very shouty the closer we get to Christmas. This time I asked once and never mentioned it again and ignored everything going wrong. The family (DH and late teen/adult DC) got a bit stressy at having to do stuff at the last minute, like wrap their presents, and complained quite a lot about which bits were shit.

I'm not sure what way to go next year, it was more work for me because I did things that I would normally yell at others to do, like moving random crap from the sitting room, clearing and laying the table, prepping the veg, getting the serving crockery down from the top of the cabinets, sweeping the floor, removing leaves from the front path. Because I was doing stuff that they could have been doing I didn't have time to do the pretty, unnecessary stuff that I quite enjoy like decorating the table (Christmas napkin rings, candles, quilted table runner, crackers) or decorating the house (DH did the tree but nothing else). So there were some pointed comments about it 'not feeling very Christmassy this year'. The DC were miffed because I just picked up all their shit littering the hall and sitting room and shoved it into a downstairs cupboard. But, on the other hand, I didn't get as stressed by their collective inability to do the thing at the time that it needs to be done because I just did it in plenty of time. For instance DH always gets the serving crockery down from the cabinets on the fifth time of asking when there is barely enough time to run it through the dishwasher and then 'fixes' that by hand washing it and blocking the sink which I need for food prep, I did it two days before so it was clean and ready to be used without stress on my part. When he saw it he said "I was just about to do that".

There were tweaks that I'm made in the past that are still good. I order a boneless, stuffed turkey crown which only takes 2.5 hours to cook and gets delivered on 23rd. Takes up less space in the fridge, don't need to get up early to put it in the oven, easy to carve, not too many leftovers, don't need to queue or book a pick up time. I buy prepared roast potatoes made with beef dripping. This year I didn't even put them on the shopping list as DH never reads the ingredients on things and always comes home with crappy flour, dextrose and palm oil coated frozen roasties and tells me they're fine. I bought them in November before the rush and threatened bodily harm to anyone who cooked them before Christmas Day.

Buy less food. I buy less each year but I’m still eating it for a week.

Go somewhere else or go on holiday. I found hosting exhausting and draining especially when I had been ill beforehand

Oh yes this is another one for me! We are in a new area this year and I didn’t research Christmas Eve services until it was too late/ I was too tired and busy to go. But it is one of my favourite parts of Christmas so going to figure it out next year….