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

Our worst family Xmas disaster is probably the year that my dad decided to try to fix a dripping pipe (tiny drip, easily contained with a pot underneath) on Xmas eve... So he took the joint apart and tried to reseal it, put it back together... Suddenly it's not dripping, it's gushing!
I'll never forget my mum sounding stressed and phoning lots of plumbers late on Xmas eve (and most of them sounded like they'd had a drink or three)... Finally she found a guy who came round on xmas morning to fix it. Must have cost my parents a fortune.
TIP: don't start your diy on Xmas eve evening when all the diy shops are shut and the tradesmen are at the pub.

It's not Christmas without a catastrophe in our house.

From broken ovens to dropped turkeys... We have seen it all.

A personal favourite was 2 years ago when we realised that the Xmas decorations were on fire... ensued and we opened the door to let out the smoke... Every neighbour was standing in the street trying to figure out what we were hooting and laughing about...

This year's catastrophe has already happened. I've had knee surgery and so can't get about at all. Hopefully there won't be anything more dramatic than that!

Almost forgot about the Christmas I had to rush our dimwitted but lovely old cat to the vet. He'd (unknown to us) eaten a load of tinsel off the tree. First we knew about it was when we heard some yowling coming from the litter tray. He was trying to poo it out, only it got stuck and ended up sticking out of his bum. He frightened himself half to death with it, and spent an hour galloping around the house, dragging shitty tinsel after him. Vet advised trimming the sticky out bit and waiting off nature to run it's course. And so it did, when in Boxing Day he pooped the rest out onto the sofa.

Tip: don't have that long thin streamer type tinsel on your tree if your cat is particularly stupid. I shouldn't have been surprised. I found the useless bugger stuck in the Christmas tree the week before. My first and last attempt with a real tree.

The first Christmas I hosted, I cooked the turkey upside down unknowingly. When I got it out to carve it I was saying to DH - oh my god there's no breast meat! There's no fucking MEAT! I was almost crying. I phoned my mum and she said straight away "have you got it upside down?"

Where do I start! Christmas catastrophe is my middle name!

We once had microwaved soup on Christmas day because we thought the oven was broken (turned out it wasn't it was just one of the hobs).

Whilst on the topic of microwaves, once the sprouts got left in the microwave on Christmas day and got forgotten!

We once forgot to organise any dessert to have after Christmas dinner -The kids were so dissappointed that it was Christmas day and we had nothing, and I mean nothing, in the house that could be classed as dessert.

My top tip would be to prepare as much of the food in advance (or buy as many things pre-prepared as possible) - After all it is only 1 day of the year and it's really not worth getting so stressed for.

Oh and don't forget crackers - Kids were also horrified at that one year.

My son was born shortly before Christmas and we spent it at my in-laws' with him. Unfortunately every time any food was being served he would immediately decide he needed feeding too - he was a particularly ravenous baby. So I spent most of Christmas dinner and all the other meals sitting on the sofa feeding while everyone else ate, and then getting mine when it was cold. So my tip is to be extra nice to any new mothers!

I was quite excited about last Christmas, because I had started eating meat for the first time since I was a teenager, and I was going to have my first "proper" Christmas dinner in 27 years. Due to the storms, we had no electricity from 23rd December until Boxing Day, so fate had other ideas. We have a gas hob, so I cooked fish and chips on the hob instead...

Oven door fell off 11pm Christmas eve. Tapped it back with gaffer tape and the pavlova still inside.
Actually probably one of the funniest Christmas' we've ever had.
My parents still have that oven 10 years later! Temperature dials don't work so you have to guess!

One Christmas when I was little my mum decided it would be wise to leave buying the turkey until xmas eve afternoon - cue driving past lots of closed shops until we found a little Londis with a lone Bernard Matthews Turkey breast roast.

A few years back we stayed at my mums, she gave her bed to me and my two kids, and slept at the foot of the bed on an air bed, which she soon discovered had a slow puncture. She must have blown it up about 20 times in the night until she gave up and resigned herself to a night on the floor.

This same xmas she found she only had 2 eggs to make the Yorkshire pudding, as she was complaining about this they slipped out of her hand and smashed.

Not exactly a catastrophe, but cooking the Christmas pud in a slow cooker is more effective when the slow cooker gets turned on!

Don't leave wrapping Xmas present wrapping until after you get home from a big night out on Xmas eve. Still not sure what was worse, my hangover or watching my mum pretend to surprised as she unwrapped my gift that you could clearly see through the gaps in my terrible wrappping.....ten years later and I still feel guilty.

Sellotape (in a dispenser).

Batteries (a variety of).

Gin (lots of).

God bless us, one and all...

Just keep smiling, happiness helps everything

The year my septic system backed up and flooded the bathroom and exfuckwit decided it was the actual toilet,took it off and broke it springs to mind :o Oh and the ex was LIVID about the situation and apparently it was all my fault.

Luckily as it was christmas and there were new toys it wasnt too hard keeping my 3 under 5 out the shit mess :o

TOP TIP dont marry a fuckwit,makes Christmas much more enjoyable

Not sure if this is a tip, but I don't actually do it.

I usually spend the day alone, I eat what I want, when I want and drink if and when I want. I do have to check beforehand if the take aways are delivering, and some do.

Tip from my mum is to always have one or two extra presents under the tree for any unexpected guests, something like chocolates that make a present for anyone.

IpswichWitch - sorry I'm helpless with laughter and aftershock laughing ! Oh yeah, it would have been a real hoot if happened to me of course.

Being advised by the vet to trim tinsel that was hanging out of the cat's bottom - priceless. The cat dragging shitty tinsel all over the house, um, sorry. Not much fun for you or the cat.

My brother managed to set fire to his (at the time MIL) on Christmas evening once all the children were in bed.
Beautiful table set with candles, decorations strung across the ceiling.
Party poppers let off and the streamers caught across the garlands, dangled into the candles and the whole lot went up, raining everyone with burning paper.
MIL's hat and Elnetted hair caught fire. Drinks thrown everywhere to put out the flames.
20 seconds that could have turned horrific.

Celebrate safely everyone and have a plan, knowing where everyone may be in your home and have a main and back up escape route if possible.

Start shopping early, be finished by December when all the over priced crap comes into stores!

Disasters so far,

The oven breaking halfway through cooking the Turkey on Christmas morning for dinner - tip - cook meat the day before and have backup frozen stuff in the freezer

Getting food poising after the freezer bring left open with the a turkey in it a few weeks before and the 'friend' I was staying with not saying anything so just refroze all the half thawed meat. - tip - I'd rather not have the a turkey than eat one that will give me salmonella. (Although I did lose quite a bit of weight that festive season, there was only one bathroom shared between 6 adults!)

Shop early, get a few of the non perishable bits in the weekly shop all through Nov and Dec, that way you won't end up in a stand up row in The supermarket when you witness a family stealing the last jar of cranberry sauce out of an old ladies trolley and try to call them on it.

Lastly - don't try and be super host, ask people to bring a dish or a bottle, or to peel a spud, stick some festive music on, grab a glass of something cheerful and have a laugh over everything. People generally ask out of politeness, accept with a smile rather than trying to do it all.

It's one day, the shops all open Boxing Day. Have fun and relax. (I need to take this advice most )

After the main course I tipped the choc sauce for the profiteroles down the sink mistaking it for gravy, no dessert then

Last Christmas was the first year I'd cooked Christmas dinner (or indeed a roast dinner from scratch at all, usually using frozen roasties and other trimmings). The three things that helped me were:

1. Issuing orders Delegating tasks to DH;
2. Before starting cooking, working out timings and setting reminders with alarms on my phone to tell me what to do and when. This was particularly helpful after following point number 3;
3. Drinking wine before, during and after cooking

Christmas chaos is what it's all about really. Stress comes from trying to make it perfect. Though we won't be having a stress free Xmas this year - we've agreed to go to the in laws

My practical tip would be check out the packaging on any toys before wrapping. Playmobil takes hours to assemble, you have to choose whether the assembly is part of the fun on Xmas morning or whether to do it the night before and have it play ready on the big day.

For other toys, make sure you have screwdrivers, bolt cutters (I'm only exaggerating a little bit) and spare batteries to hand. (Especially check for obscure battery sizes) When the dc were smaller I used to take toys out of those plastic packages where they're wired in and put them in gift bags instead so they can just be lifted out and played with straight away.

I will never forget the time my dog ate the turkey. He managed to climb up on to the kitchen table from a chair. I thought it was hilarious (I was about 14) but my parents funnily enough, did not.
Luckily we had a joint of beef for boxing day so used that instead.
This year I'm doing Christmas dinner for the first time. I'm excited but my oven isn't very powerful and I'm hoping we won't be waitin around all day for it to cook!

I forgot my tip! Prepare the veg the night before. I know ra boring but it really helps.
Always have an extra gift for the dc's for the evening when they think it's all over.. You then have one more surprise for them. Obviously if you do it every year it's not a surprise as they'll catch on but I'm doing that this year anyway!

Oh! I forgot another one

I'd cooked the Turkey Christmas Eve over night, I'd stumbled into the kitchen very early Christmas morning, taken it out and left it on the side covered in foil.
Due to it being extremely early I didn't shut the kitchen door properly.

We woke up, did the exciting present opening bits and then when I went to start finishing the rest of the lunch I got the shock of my life when the cooked turkey started moving!

Our new kitten and bad example older cat had snuck into to kitchen and were inside the cavity of the turkey eating their way out of it!

I wish I'd taken a picture of this tiny tabby kitten poking his head out with a turkey moustache.