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

[AngelieMumsnet]

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

my mum dropped the turkey on the kitchen floor one year when she was trying to take it out of the oven, and splashed fat all over herself, so wasnt too happy about that one... luckily we brushed it all off and ate it anyway..

another year my brother got arsy about absolutely everything and totally ruined Christmas for me, when my DD wasn't quite 2yo.

Top tips! Make everything as easy as possible, be well prepared, and drink plenty of Bucks Fizz whilst cooking!

Make extra/double quantity of stuffing (my favourite part of any roast meal) and cook some of it in a thin layer on a sheet baking tray. This is AMAZING and pleasingly efficient when enjoy turkey stuffing sandwiches on boxing day-just cut out a portion and add it in to your sandwich

I can't think of a major catastrophe either. I don't go all out too much, My major stress is present buying to be honest. I would rather keep it low key then then my DC are young and don't like to sit for ages eating a meal!

One year I let the steamer boil dry cos I was busy with kids playing.
It wasn't good running upto my mams house to borrow her spare bottom pan as mine was sitting in the gated having been banished there for the foreseeable.

TIP- Always check your water levels.

For the past few year me and dp have cooked meats and stuffings on Xmas eve and also prepared all the veg and pigs in blankets so they can just be cooked on the big day.

TIP- Do as much as you can on Xmas eve.

don't get very very drunk with your portuguese neighbour on xmas eve, when they celebrate xmas with wine/port and good food/presesnt x-changes. It will avoid an epic hangover the following day, when your DD refuses to sleep until 2am trying to stay awake to see santa and your DS wakes at 5am, finds his stocking and the day starts.

Christmas dinner is very difficult to cook in these circumstances.

This wasn't exactly a catastrophe, but it was very funny at the time.

When I still lived at home (aaaaggggesss ago) mum had a cat that was usually very timid.

One Christmas Day, dad had carried the whole turkey to the table (which was unusual as it was normally carved in the kitchen).

The cat went mad. He went frantic trying to climb on the table and get at the turkey. And we were just as frantic in trying to shoo him out the room.

Every time we thought we'd got him out, he slipped round us and tried to get back on the table.

Took us about 15 minutes at least to get him out finally. It was so funny and had us all laughing.

I have never since seen a cat that determined to get at food.

Biggest Christmas disaster was loosing all power at a big family gathering in a large remote rented holiday house, when we hadn't eaten. It resulted in great family team work, chopping wood in the rapidly declining daylight to stock the fires, routing around and finding barbeque grill trays to sit across the fire grates to make a temporary hob, rethinking the meal so that we could feed ourselves from cooking at the fire.

The meal involved jacket potatoes foil rapped and baked in the ash, bacon and sausages with cranberry sauce, several tubes of Pringles and many many bottles of wine. Still it is one of the very memorable Christmas meals. Blackened food after lots of alcohol in dim light isn't so bad.

However, if you want advice.....

.... don't let a small bowl drop down at the back of the gas oven, trapping a pocket of gas that goes off like a gun, firing open the oven door and sending you flying back across the kitchen.

Happened one year with mum, when I was about 10/11. Saw mum go back across the kitchen, but luckily she was only shaken not hurt.

A really great tip for anyone in a new relationship. Works especially well if you and they don't have children....Please take note as this really, really works. When discussing where to spend that important 'first christmas' together, please resist offering to spend it at your place and 'host' Christmas. Instead let him impress you with his cooking, his hosting, his wine choice etc etc. Reason at this early stage in your relationship he is keen to impress you and will pull out all the stops while you relax back with your wine and your kindle. Okay so far so good. this also IME (12 years down the line) sets a precedent of him stressing about buying the food, him cooking the food, him stressing about the table settings while you relax back with said wine and kindle :-) xx

Oh gosh, our family have had loads! There was the year both of my parents had gastroenteritis and had to throw away all of the Christmas food as they were too ill to eat it. The student years trying to cook Christmas dinner on a miniature cooker that sat on the work surface and would only heat one thing at a time, it had an oven and two rings but only one of them ever seems to be hot at a time. Then recently mum went to start cooking her dinner only to find her cooker was broken, a mad dash to drive her to our house whilst desperately praying we didn't run out of petrol ensued. We don't seem to do well with Christmas really!

Well there was the year my exP and I went out Christmas Eve, drank rather a lot, and drunkenly made out way home to a power cut. Thing was, it was only our house that was affected. ExP ended up on a stepladder poking at the fuse box with a knife, while I was passed out on the sofa in a drunken stupor. Fortunately his dad turned up before he could do any real damage. He gave us a number for his electrician pal, called Rambo (?!) who actually felt sorry for us turned up on Christmas morning to fix the fuse box. We had opened our presents by firelight and couldn't actually see what we had got!
Tip: don't get utterly wankered on Christmas Eve. Your ability to think rationally becomes seriously impaired, and phoning your electrician and asking if he has a red bandana on is probably not a good idea!

Then the lovely Christmas my DH proposed to me. I remember him handing me a small box and thinking "well that can't be the kindle I was hoping for!" It was my lovely engagement ring :) I was so oblivious I didn't even notice he was down on one knee!
I got my kindle the following Christmas

Last year was my first year cooking our own xmas dinner.

I am a good cook but the turkey was dry, the ham chewy and the gravy cold.

This year we are having chicken, because I know how to cook chicken really well. :o

Years ago, dh and I took the PIL to a posh hotel for christmas lunch - was to be lovely, first time they ever stayed over with us etc.
FIL had 'flu' and was moaning and groaning all day (but drank a shedload), MIL couldn't get to grips with a buffet lunch (amazing spread, fab food), and there was a storm that night and the flat roof ripped off the room they were sleeping in. And I drove there and back (and then onto their house the next day for a day with all the ILs) so couldn't drink.

A list.. .

The year my sister vomited her dinner all over my beautiful new doll. Her hair was never the same again.

The year the cat ate 3 different turkeys.

The year the turkey was still frozen in the middle.

The year we all had D&V and nobody ate anything.

The year the dog ate a whole tub of Heroes.

TOP TIP

give in to fate and get very very drunk.

The first Christmas DH and I were together I invited both our families so was feeling a bit pressured anyway. Frantically trying to coordinate the vastly overcomplicated Christmas dinner and get all the timings right and hadn't realised that my mum had accidentally switched the oven off. Absolute nightmare- I think I may have cried...

Keep the food simple, unless you have an experienced cook in the house

Better still, ask your guests to each bring something for the meal eg Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, starter

Then you can concentrate on doing the main course

One year, a couple of days before Christmas, I had bought a fresh turkey and put it in the fridge. 15 mins later I heard a 'thud' followed by odd noises. I went into the kitchen to find that the turkey had stopped the fridge door from shutting properly and my cats had opened the door wider, had dragged the turkey off of the shelf and were tucking in! Luckily there was enough time to get to the shop for a new one, but the queues (which I had shopped early to avoid) were horrendous.

Tip for a stress free day...don't try and make it perfect. It's a Sunday roast with family.

Our oven died last Christmas Day so we just had Turkey sandwiches. Then mil spent the day vomiting due to a hiatus hernia. It was a real disappointment.

Took a chicken out to defrost on christmas eve. Not sure what happened, but when we got up on christmas morning you could smell it from upstairs < vom face. Ended up having veg with pigs in blankets for christmas dinner.

To be fair, the store we bought it from gave us vouchers and apologised profusely - we just wanted to warn them in case there was something wrong with their supplier/freezer/storage. After all, christmas was over and nobody starved.

Top tip? As long as you're not harming anyone, do christmas how you want. If you want mac and cheese (done that), no travel, on your own, do it. If you want 20 guests with full christmas dinner, do it. You're a long time dead...

The year I discovered I was allergic to real Christmas trees was also the year I had splashed out on a turkey from a Very Posh Supermarket.

My hands were covered in a red pimply rash and I had drunk quite a lot of pink fizz to get me past the horror of it all. In a tipsy haze I thrust one rubbergloved hand into the Posh Turkey Cavity and pulled out... a huge turkey claw, complete with yellowy nails encrusted with turkey poo.

Paper hat askew I staggered to the sitting room where the guests awaited their dinner and made an entrance, turkey claw dangling from blue rubber fingers. "Will someone come and deal with this!" I cried and burst into boozy sobs.

Bastard Posh Supermarket never even gave me a refund for the Claw. It was like 'what are you complaining about, you got extra!!'

I would say try to get the balance right between being prepared and over planning. Also declare all disasters, with the right people, everyone pitching in to help/sort the problem can foster a lovely sort of "blitz spirit"

We had the glass fall out of the oven door one Christmas, frantic call to local handyman who came over and fixed it for us. He only charged five pounds!

Love the turkey mad cat!

During the Christmas holidays I was rushing around trying to get the house presentable for a family party and I fell down the stairs while carrying a chair! Ended up in hospital getting my arm x-rayed and the party had to be postponed for a day! Luckily it wasn't broken!

I've had several - one involved liberally sprinkling the potatoes with washing up liquid instead of salt; the other was lighting the wood burner while the turkey was in the Aga, going out with the dog and forgetting that as the woodburner heated the house, the Aga would switch itself off. I returned 2 hours later to find the turkey was still so raw it nearly jumped out of the oven when I opened the door. I had 12 people coming for dinner :(

we had two christmases in april... which was how long it took to recover from morning sickness and be able to cook. (both pregnancies)

mil died on christmas day and ex had to come downstairs after finding out and carry on with the christmas party for the children.

my mum ended up in hospital on christmas day one year. we had the turkey at new year. (at least it wasn't at easter)

top tips for stress free easters christmas buy as much as possible early and freeze/put in cupboard. blanch carrots and parsnips and freeze ready for roasting.

lists

don't stress too much about having everything just so. do as much as you can manage.

for goodness sake do not go and spend it with relatives that you would rather not see/your dp/dh or children would rather not see. (ie the ones that make it miserable) (eg if every year your (insert reli) gets drunk, has a row with aunty mable and critiscies your parenting choices stay home or visit someone else)

The bit of plastic holding the oven together broke. went to the diy store and bought roofing bolts to hold the door together.

oh and the year ex thumped the light switch and we had the prospect of christmas in the dark . fortunately a neighbour electrician was able to put in a new light switch.

ditching the ex would have been the quickest way to a stress free christmas.