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

Always start wrapping 99% of the presents before Christmas Eve, otherwise you end up going to bed at 4am, with the DC getting you up at 5am!

When we were children our car broke down on Christmas day on the M25 on the way to relatives, luckily for us friends from our village happened to drive past us and they rescued us!

My dishwasher broke a few years ago on Christmas Eve, that was pretty annoying.

On another Christmas I popped outside as it was snowing, i'd only had a few glasses of wine but for some reason going from a warm room to cold outside and back in a warm room made me really ill and I had to go to bed and was sick all night!

Most other Christmases have been fairly uneventful thankfully.

I've only cooked a full Xmas dinner once and it went really well! Usually I go to family/friends place for Xmas dinner.

I do recall as a teenager my Dad being left a shopping list for the extended family Xmas day meal - on it "ham". We used to have a large ham on bone every year (Southern hemisphere). Instead of picking up the ham from the butchers he bought a pack of sliced ham - not even naice sliced ham but the molded stuff.

Disaster was averted with just hours to space as SM secured the last proper ham in town on Xmas eve.

The heating breaking on Christmas Eve with no chance of a plumber coming out. Then (almost luckily ) I got flu the next day, as I sat down to to lunch, so no longer noticed the lack of warmth as I was generating enough to even keep the cat happy next to me!

Classic forgot to put the turkey on moment and had to leave in laws to go home and do it. Somehow along the way I managed to "rescue" 2 dogs who had escaped from somewhere and ended up spending an hour trying to find someone to give them to. Fortunately they had a collar and a number on. The number kept ringing out but I eventually got through and a rather sheepish hungover young man came and retrieved them. What a joyous morning that was!

Top tip
build the castle/ playmobil/ football table and the like before the big otherwise christmas morning turns into a construction zone!

Power cut on Christmas Day! The turkey was chopped up and barbecued instead of going in the oven - turned out fine!

The Christmas before last was our turn to make dinner - 8 people so pretty manageable. I had my list of what should go in the oven when and most things were prepped the day before. I am not sure what happened but the guests arrivd at 2 pm but the food took much longer than I had thought (and we have a hot oven!). We had the dinner at 5pm (ass opposed to the planned 3pm so everyone was hungry) but my poor husband had to go to work soon after. I can laugh at it now but my brother in law also hid my list. My husband shouted at me for losing it so my bil had to fess up.

Do what ever works for your family- do not try and copy the Xmas adverts of a perfect Christmas as that is highly unlikely to happen. We have two toddlers, so we are keeping family activities (eating round dinning table, playing board games) to maximum 15 minutes.

We were hosting a family party right at the moment the drains became blocked.
Toilet was out of use with 30+ guests. Still shudder at the emergency measures we resorted to that night.

Remember that it is just a roast dinner with Brussels sprouts so no need to go over the top with too many trimmings as nobody will have room to squeeze it all in.

Last year I nearly set fire to the house two days before Christmas, so Christmas nearly didn't happen. Which would have been a catastrophe.
We had a little Christmas tree on the window ledge, that dd1 had made and decorated years ago at nursery. Last year, I managed to set set it alight when trying to blow out the advent candle. It was 11pm, NOBODY woke up when the smoke alarms were blaring. I chucked it, still burning, into the kitchen sink. And then out of the kitchen window, where it stayed for 6 months.

There was a smell of burnt artificial tree all over Christmas

DH put about half a red cabbage down the waste disposal and blocked the sink. The dishwasher filled with blue/purple water and nothing was draining from the sink. No amount of plunging would clear it. We ended up having to wash everything up by hand the horror in the bath.

Fortunately we looked at the chaos, opened another bottle of wine and found the whole thing hilarious.

Let the kids save some presents till after lunch and then they've got something to open through the day. It helps them to play with what they've opened so far instead of unwrapping everything and barely looking at it.

Partner had arranged for us to go over to his parents on the big day, so we embarked on the 50 mile trip only to find that they no longer lived there. Partner's parents had moved in late November and of course, they had told him (and me-I wasn't entirely innocent, but was distracted by all the usual Christmas 'stuff'), but it had slipped his mind and he just drove on auto-pilot to his childhood home. Deeply embarrassing arriving on a stranger's doorstep on Christmas day laden with luggage and sporting a fine pair of antlers.....

I prepare all the veg for the Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. I also make the stuffing, custard and jelly for the trifle and put the turkey in the oven with the timer on so it begins to cook early.

Usually all my Christmas shopping is done within two weeks of Chrsitmas so I can make sure it is wrapped well before the big day too.

When we cooked our first ever big Christmas dinner for all the family, dearest DP - not the world's best chef - poured the beef fat down the sink on Christmas eve night. On Christmas Day the sink was well and truly blocked. After much poking and prodding and panicking, he ended up borrowing the neighbours u-bend as they were on holiday and we had a key to feed their fish!! Hilarious!

Worst but funniest moment was when my grandmothers chair broke at the dinner table. She fell on the floor and so did her food. The best memories are playing monopoly. My children are allowed to make mess and run riot on Christmas day as long as they chill out in the evening and play quietly when we watch tv.

I seem to have the clumsiest son in the world and one year whilst at my parents Christmas Day he swung on the bannister and ripped it clean off the wall!! Plaster the lot! He then proceeded to put sherbet in a fizzy drink which exploded everywhere. I suggest you keep calm, take deep breaths and remember its just one day!

My best tip for a stress free Christmas day dinner is to let someone else do it and go out, had a wonderful time with all of the family last year.

I think it's good for everyone to pitch in. Whether it's food prep, cooking, tidying/washing up - it makes a huge difference to spread the load!

Get the kids involved in making christmas dinner

My best tip for a stress free Christmas is order all the food from restaurants and delis.There is no need to slave in the kitchen and you can spend more time with the family.

don't invite the in laws!