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Chance to win one of three £100 Lidl vouchers by sharing your Christmas catastrophes and/or tips for a stress-free day...NOW CLOSED

389 replies

AngelieMumsnet · 09/12/2014 16:08

Have you ever had a Christmas catastrophe? Have you burnt the brussels and gift-wrapped the Christmas cake? Or are you in fact a Festive Fairy Godmother, brimming with hints and tips and always on hand to help at this time of year? Please share your worst and best Christmas related moments and festive tips - you could win a Lidl voucher.

Lidl say "With fantastic recipes and tips galore, we want to help you breeze through the festive season, and avoid any disasters along the way. We’d like to know your best festive chaos stories, along with any hints and tips to make things more manageable. We have everything you need to help you get Christmas right; from turkeys and all the trimmings, to sweet treats that are too good to resist, so that you can pull off a flawless Christmas with Lidl without having to blow your budget!"

Everyone who comments below sharing how they got Christmas right (or wrong!) with stories, hints or tips, will be entered into a prize draw where three Mumsnetters will each win £100 worth of Lidl vouchers.

Please note that any comments posted on this thread may be used by Lidl in further marketing material (anonymously, of course)

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

Chance to win one of three £100 Lidl vouchers by sharing your Christmas catastrophes and/or tips for a stress-free day...NOW CLOSED
OP posts:
ElviraCondomine · 14/12/2014 19:57

Share the work!
This year, our hosts are providing the main meat course and veg, we're taking the veggie main, and the older DC are making desserts (they're really good at baking!)

It also means, don't make things from scratch if it means more stress and less time with the family. I'm more than happy to tuck into store bought mini stollen and Lebkuchen rather than spending time making mince pies and it adds a lovely Germanic touch too, which somehow seems more Christmassy.

beckyinman · 14/12/2014 19:59

My nanna iced a meat pie instead of the Christmas cake when she was getting on. As we cut through the icing all the gravy seeped out

wooohooo · 14/12/2014 20:04

My first ever home and cooking my first christmas dinner DISASTER
I had a cooker given to me but wasn;t told the oven was dodgy,It kept turning Its self up and down,Six oclock In the evening It still wsnt cooked
Good Job there was only 2 of us and a 9 month old baby to feed

glennamy · 14/12/2014 20:24

Prepare as much food as possible the night before, *if things go wrong in any part on the day, just laugh it off! ;)

When I was a teenager we went to my uncles for Christmas dinner one year and as ciorny as it sounds their dog (a Great Dane) got to the turkey before we did and we ended up with tined ham! The laughs it provided compensated for any worries over the turkey (see above*)

dragon60 · 14/12/2014 20:25

Two years ago the boiler stopped working, water gushing everywhere. Only noticed because I went to get ice cream from the freezer, could have been worse. So we had to put on extra layers, but it didn't stop us having fun. No point stressing about something we could do nothing about. Having mopped up, defrosted the pipe which caused the water to flood all we could do was wait for it to dry out completly before it would re start. So Christmas carried on.

emmav6 · 14/12/2014 20:28

budget each part of christmas - food/presents/celebrations & stick to it to save the stress after christmas

TooMuchCantBreathe · 14/12/2014 20:32

My tip is preparation on Christmas eve. All veg in pans covered with water. Pigs in blankets on a tray in the fridge, stuffing in a loaf tin in the fridge and so on. The day should involve heating the oven, turning things on at the appropriate time and serving. Nothing more. Make sure there is a dedicated bottle of the cooks tipple kept in the kitchen appropriately cooled/heated.

Definitely keep in mind it's a roast dinner, relax and adopt the "what will be will be" attitude. Anyone who doesn't like it doesn't get invited the following year. Smile

emella · 14/12/2014 20:41

We've honestly never had a Christmas catastrophe, but then that's definitely all down to planning ;) The only minor catastrophe was when my mum accidently left the Giblets bag inside the chicken and cooked them. We always have the same routine every year for dinner; my daughter does the homemade aspects of the meal and I do the rest, so having more than one person helping is great! I think just having a small family helps hugely, but then that's not really advice, lol! Doing everything early that you can do early I would say is the key. Shop early, so then you can focus on other parts of Christmas such as Christmas dinner, and you can plan for it a lot longer. Then you're not a few days ahead, and completely losing it.

selloveday · 14/12/2014 20:58

Try to organise and prepare as much as possible beforehand. Also try to relax and not build it into a bigger deal than it needs to be. I find that if I try to make everything perfect something always goes wrong anyway so I'm just much more relaxed than I used to be.

VictoriaSt · 14/12/2014 21:14

No real disasters thank baby Jeebus. My top tip is just to be prepared early - Christmas shopping early, dinner on early... :D

staceyshoes · 14/12/2014 21:33

My top tip would be don't leave it too late & leave any children under the age of 5 with friends of family whilst you're doing it!

pfcpompeysarah · 14/12/2014 21:49

Have plenty of batteries and DON'T get sick, my sons first christmas I was poorly with a tummy bug, and it was awful, I was in bed by 8pm, not a good day!!

lhlee62 · 14/12/2014 22:03

Get everything in advance, don't leave it to the last minute and ultimately don't stress it's not the end of the world!! I just chill and think what will be will be!

Alwaysforever2009 · 14/12/2014 22:46

I gave birth to my ds Christmas Day morning . Within10 mins after having him a bloke dressed as Santa wheeled in a Christmas dinner for me . It was only 11am !

Alwaysforever2009 · 14/12/2014 22:55

Last year my dad had a false tooth made to replace one that had fallen out .
At Christmas he always loves to eat lots of nuts so was munching away on Christmas Day .
all of a sudden we heard "O dear where's my tooth gone "..
He had swallowed it with the nuts .
Boxing day we have to visit other relatives so when returning to my parents that evening I found my dad had his front tooth back in again
I won't give you the details of how he got it back :D

queenbrunhilda · 14/12/2014 23:47

Have spent too many Christmas nights wrapping presents until dawn. Now try and do most things in tissue paper with stickers. And I'd like to buy a drink for the Mnetter last year who suggested tin foil for stocking fillers. A revelation!

princesssmitheee · 14/12/2014 23:58

wine

scousadelic · 15/12/2014 00:10

After a few Christmas dinners that felt stressful as I tried to co-ordinate and time everything, I read in a magazine (think it was Family Circle back in the 1980s!) how to cook the turkey the day before and write a timetable/checklist by counting back from the time you wanted to serve it so have done that every Christmas since

This meant we avoided disaster one year (1997?) when there were high winds on Christmas Eve resulting in power cuts for a lot of the North of England. Our power went off about 10am and only came back on about midday which meant the turkeys were not safe to eat for a lot of families locally as they'd been partially cooked. We were secure in the fact that we could have turkey sandwiches even if the power didn't come back on for veg!

Gilla01 · 15/12/2014 00:27

My worst thing was when my gas rings decided to play up, and I was left with one ring and the oven.

Still, we muddled through and everything was cooked eventually.

MummyBtothree · 15/12/2014 01:53

When basting the turkey half way through cooking, I yelled for my hubby to come quickly as there was a large bulging protrusion coming out the turkey, I thought it was some kind of prolapse!. I didnt realise there was a plastic bag of giblets inside! It gave the meat an unusual twang to it anyway Shock

MrsMarigold · 15/12/2014 09:58

My MIL popped a joint of venison in the oven to defrost to prevent the cat getting into it, I was out no-one told me. I came home decided to pre-heat the oven for the DC's lunch and ruined the venison, all the plastic wrapping sort of melted onto it. I felt awful. Luckily my MIL is very sweet and saw the funny side.

Top tip: communicate

andreaca · 15/12/2014 10:09

My worst christmas was my husband was giving our daughter a horsy ride on his foot, we heard a click and then she screamed, we rushed straight to A & E and spent a couple of hours there, thankfully nothing was broken, everything we had panned was 2 hours behind, so our dinner was nearly our tea.

my biggest tip is invite your mam for dinner, if shes anything like mine, shell help you out a lot.

Bobbylolly570 · 15/12/2014 10:18

Ordering what we believed to be a cooked ham, only to place in middle of table christmas day and unwrap to find it wasn't cooked.

Lesson learnt - always check in advance

twinklenic · 15/12/2014 11:28

the worst thing thats ever happened to e was dropping the turkey when id taken it out to turn it over, i had to wipe it over and still dished it up , although it was the only year i didnt have turkey on my plate ;)

Kangakate · 15/12/2014 11:37

Christmas dinner for us, is just like having a Sunday roast with some extra trimming so we try not to stress, everyone puts so much emphasis on it, but if you can cope with a roast then you can cope with this. Try to cook only what you need, otherwise it's expensive and the kids get fed up with the left overs and there's no shame in buying some pre-prepared bits.