Is your Christmas changing this year?

[AlwaysPrettyOnTheInside]

I just had a thread earlier about our traditional Christmas food, a ham, beef or lamb for Xmas day and beef for NYD. Thinking about it further though, if things carry on as they are, I'm not sure whether three joints of meat are going to be feasible.

We get full monies worth, no waste, but the cost upfront might be prohibitive.

I will start to put a little bit away from next payday, we haven't been able to so far as just been living month to month, and just haven't even thought about Christmas yet.

We live off fuck all the rest of the time, I don't really want a tight Christmas 😐

There's only two of us, and we've been scaling down the amount we buy the last few years anyway, and have ended up eating the big Xmas Dinner in parts across 3 days as we havent felt like eating it as one big meal, but to cut costs I'm thinking:

I could buy slices of ham for Xmas eve, and just do ham, bread, piccalilli, cheese etc for that meal instead of the ham in the fridge for as long as it lasts.

Prawns can be bought individually by weight, for prawn cocktail starters.

Beef can be cut in half and frozen and split between the two meals, Christmas and nyd.

Any other genius cost cutting ideas?

Last year we couldn’t afford any kind of poultry so we ended up buying yellow stickers slices of Turkey from the deli counter in the supermarket and froze it until the day. It was great, we saved lots on the actual bird and lots on the energy cost if the oven. Still felt special

We've had roast duck for the last couple of Christmas's - feels more special than chicken and more tasty and cheaper than turkey. Just get it on normal teaco order around now (so about £9-£10), and freeze. They sometimes become less available/more expensive when they sell duck in their Christmas selections. Ham can be reasonable- agaim just get a gammon and cook yourself. And there may be offers on meat coming up to Christmas- depending on where you are.

There’s only two of us this year so I’m following the advice of a friend and we’re having Christmas turkey burgers, using turkey mince, sage, onion etc. Posh fries, home made coleslaw and a decent salad.

Last year we had a M&S turkey thigh joint which was a sous vide part cooked thing and it was amazing - fed the pair of us twice! Unfortunately I can’t see it on their Xmas food site for this year…

Yes we are cutting back even more this year, we've got more and more simple over the years and we actually enjoy it more!

We've had the conversation with DHs side of the family about sticking to a £10 limit for presents. We need to talk to my side of the family. PIL are giving us money towards a day out we want to go on instead of a present as we couldn't afford to go ourselves and DC want to go and we don't need more "stuff".

Definitely cutting down on the food this year we don't need nearly as much as we usually buy. Already got a few things in the freezer that have been on offer (sticky toffee pudding, pigs in blankets, mini pies, sausage meat)

We get a hamper from our butchers for £45 and it's amazing value so will be doing that again.

No big days out planned over Christmas, luckily our children have simple tastes! The highlight last year was a drive to our nearest town looking at lights on the way then a walk around the town looking at the Christmas tree and then we got a bag of chips on a bench! Definitely repeat that this year. Also simple things at home like a film and hot chocolate station, gingerbread house. We always get a new boardgame at Christmas but this year will be from vinted.

So cutting back but still a lovely time hopefully!

I'm going to play turkey roulette this year. Last year most supermarkets were practically giving them away for £1 on Christmas Eve so I'm going to trawl those shops. If that fails, I will have a large chicken in the freezer on standby which will be fine padded out with extras on the day.

Will just be the 2 of us this year and will probably have a 'finest' quality ribeye steak shared between us and and all the usual veg. Might get a ham joint to keep us in sandwiches and meals for the days between Xmas and NY and any left over veg will get made into soup.

For snacks, a bit of cheese, pate and crackers.

@PauliesWalnuts that sounds ideal to me, I really don’t like the traditional Christmas dinner at all.
Last year we had cold meats, jacket potatoes, salad and all the bits like coleslaw etc. Sod breaking the bank to get stuffed on turkey etc!
This year will be equally simple, if DH complains he can go to his sister’s instead 😀