Talk to Homebase about your Christmas hosting top tips and/or nightmares and you could win a £300 Homebase voucher NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

As Christmas approaches and planning for Christmas events begins, Homebase is keen to hear about Mumsnetters' best and worst experiences of Christmas hosting - whether it's Christmas parties, having relatives to stay or even hosting the big day itself.

Homebase says: "Christmas is all about getting together with the most important people in our lives. It's a great feeling when loved ones come round to enjoy the fun and festivities- but it can be hard work sometimes too. Preparing food, getting your home looking fabulous, making sure everyone's having a good time ... the festive season comes with its own challenges and things don't always go to plan. We'd love to hear your stories of 'hosting heaven' and 'hosting hell'. Tell us about your Christmas disasters and triumphs, share your tips, fill us in on the fun times and let us know what you're planning this year."

Do you have any top tips to make Christmas hosting go as smoothly as possible? Maybe you create a time plan to make sure everything's done on schedule? Or have you had a nightmare that's put you off Christmas hosting for life?

Share your stories - good and bad - on this thread and we'll enter you into a prize draw where one MNer will win a Homebase voucher worth 300 pounds.

Thanks and good luck,
MNHQ

Make sure everyone has a drink in their hand

Not so much an all year saver.... But I am like a machine when it comes to the dinner.

I peel and prep potatoes and par boil them and the parsnips the night before. Same with the other veg - prep and get as ready as poss.

I cook the turkey in the morning and leave wrapped in foil. I've got my little spreadsheet which tells me what I'm putting in the oven and when (so that I'm not clock watching) and can make sure there's nothing that won't be under or over cooked... And more importantly as I only have one oven, that it will all get in the oven. I like to time it so I'm only in the kitchen for 10mins once an hour or something.

I normally have a cold ham on the bone to nibble at with cheese board, pickle etc so stop the alcohol consumption being a problem. And I lay the table before everyone arrives. All my baking dishes are disposable tin ones and the only 'real' glasses we have are for the dinner. The others are those nice acrylic ones you have at events you can throw away (there are 8people and 5dogs- something will break at some point and heaven forbid it be my nice glasses!!!).

All in all its normally just one dishwasher load for any pans and dinner plates, and the dessert and glasses afterwards... And I'm only in the kitchen on the day for maybe 30minutes in total.

I'm very excited for Christmas!!

My best tip is to start present shopping as early as possible - sometimes it can be as much as 18 months in advance in this household. Not only does it help to spread the cost but it also prevents last minute panic buying of rubbish. Exactly the same with buying decorations and crackers etc - it's nice to get things you really want rather than tat that you're stuck with.

For hosting, get as much done in advance as possible and if you get offers of help, take them!

Some things can't be planned though. The biggest disaster happened when I was taking plates to the table - and my foot went through the dining room floor. It wouldn't have been quite so bad, but we'd only replaced the entire ground floor only 5 years before as we'd had big damp problems and it had recurred. Couldn't have happened at a worse time

I try to get everything planned, shopped, wrapped and sorted by the 23rd so that Christmas can start on Christmas Eve and there is chance to do something festive as a family.

I have lists, meal plans and a rough idea of what we might do each do (e.g Boxing Day sports fixtures, walks at local National Trust property)

My 'top tip' if you have guests is to accept help and have jobs in mind that you are happy to delegate. Most people are happy to help out and would rather muck in than see you in the kitchen trying to do everything. Prepping veg comes with a glass of 'chef's fizz'

My tips are:

Ensure you have copious amounts of alcohol to hand.

Check your shoddy electrics in advance of the big day. It's no fun coming home from the pub late Christmas Eve and finding out your antiquated fuse box is knackered, and you have no power. Being a bit merry (ahem), we didn't exercise the best judgement and wound up with exP up a ladder prodding the fuse box with a spoon. We did manage to get hold of a lovely electrician friend of a friend on Christmas Day who not only restored power, but refused to charge us too (Rocky, you're a legend!)

Have copious amounts of alcohol to hand.

Get your oven checked. Late Christmas Eve (yes, my electrics are all doomed to fail Christmas Eve) is not the best time to try rounding up an oven repair man (who didn't have an amusing name but was legendary anyhow).

Copious amounts of alcohol.

Just maybe don't host anyone. Ever. Then there's less potential for cock ups.

Alcohol. Copious amounts of. Especially if hosting. And the numbers of friendly electricians who like a good excuse to escape from their families.

Write down a list of everything you'll need

Oh, and for added entertainment we're running a sweepstake this year on which appliance will conk out this Christmas Eve.

I find it stressful entertaining extended family at Christmas. I don't mind one or two members, but prefer it just to be me, the OH and our 2 DDs. I tend to purchase the DDs gifts over several months in advance so it spreads the cost. My OH and I just buy something small and inexpensive to give to each other.

It's not great when you are hosting and tipsy relies start opening presents at the table where there are candles and then set the kitchen table on fire!

I always try to make sure that I prepare as much as I can the day before so that I can enjoy spending time with my family and guests.

Prepare lists and shopping in plenty of time Keep them from last year. it makes life easier

We have a small Christmas just me, DH, DD1, DS, DD2 and DSS-although last year we also had DD1's partner and this year we have our lovely 6 month old grandson too. We don't care if everyone stays in their PJ's (or if DD1, partner and DSS bring theirs round as they don't live at home) and we are pretty easy going.

It may be a bit hectic this year as DGS is so young and DD2 is only 2 years old and not a fan of his!!!

I think the less you try and make it 'perfect', the better it is.

Tops for hosting smoothly - arrange for all food to come in a van from one of the supermarkets so you don't need to set food in one the few days before chrismtas when it's hell.

Start a 'gift ideas' list on your phone from around August onwards.

Buy as many gifts online so it just arrives and no stressful trip to the shops looking for gifts. Wrap as they arrive, not all in the last few weeks.

Plan things as simply as possible and try not to stress about details.

Ways it has gone hellishly - oh that would be the oven breaking down on Christmas day. Except, only breaking after the turkey's been in for an hour, and quietly breaking, not really being clear until I opened the oven to take it out and turn up the heat for the potatoes to crisp up that actually, that's not very warm at all...

dont stress out cooking on the day, just drink wine

I dream about a real one but the reality is, the three times that we ran with this:

a) first time - it cost £45 which we couldn't now afford as we need to use that money on kids' presents

b) second time - it dropped all its needles. Massive vacuuming every day plus daily crawl under it to water the pot, getting spiked in the process

c) third time - central heating insect eggs to hatch and tiny creepy crawlies plagued the living room! I kid you not - and I still can't understand it as wasn't it the wrong season for the damn eggs to be on it anyway??!

So, every year we end up hauling the artificial one down from the loft. I still nostalgically want a xmas tree smell though so end up dabbing pine on it and on the radiators...not quite the same somehow...

Using a microwave to cook the Christmas pudding. Misread the label and added the three times for each wattage together plus an extra minute for luck. Served it to my 90 year old Mum who soaked it in cream and manfully tried to crunch her way through it - but it gave us a good laugh then and in the years since!

Christmas dinner, like all Sunday dinners served on sacred days, is designed to be very minimal and with as little actual cooking to do as possible. To preserve the time for high days and holidays, the dinner basically cooks itself and all you do is put it in the oven, prod it, and put it on plates. All the puddings were made months ago. All the produce and preserves are jarred, dried, pickled, potted....it's a winter fest. For the lean months. It's not supposed to be a big job or high maintenance- it's supposed to be a quick and easy way to serve a group and preserve the feast day.

I'll wager most people cook meals that take more time to actively cook than Christmas dinner does every week.

I plan, plan, plan! I have lists for lists! I do make sure everything is done in advance but my son is exactly the same - he loves routine and to know what is happening when. The only problem I have is trying to get rid of the guests, they just seem to linger!

Our two best years have been when we had total strangers with us - it makes everyone behave themselves.
probably best not just to pull them off the nearest bus though - both were friends of friends who would otherwise have been alone a long way from home on the day

I'm another "do a lot in advance" person. Shopping all year, rolling over my excel spreadsheet for presents list/budget in early January, peeling veggies etc on Christmas eve.

I am also almost 16 years married and have never made Christmas Cake or Christmas pudding. I keep threatening to make a Yule Log, and not having time. MIL used to make cake (DH hated it though so she stopped a few years back) and DM still makes us a pudding.

When we cook, it's only for us 3. So we do a proper turkey dinner, but just a nice roast dinner not tonnes and tonnes of stuff. I always do a full turkey for stock bones and leftovers. DH loves seasonal spiced beef, and I quite like it too, so we do a small one. But generally not a ham as well. I make sure I have freezer space for leftover turkey and stock if need be, and we have a few special leftovers recipes for Christmas use only. We do buy nice treats for ourselves and have plenty in for visitors, but we don't go overboard (I don't get tins of biscuits for example, but a decent handful of nice packets of biscuits to do a mix on the plate, of ones we all like!). It's also one of the few times in the year we have 2l bottles of fizz in the house, as we usually just have multipacks of cans (we don't drink loads of them, so they go flat, or we force ourselves to drink them - so I prefer to spend a little more on the cans and then have just the right amount, still fizzy, when we want something normally). But cans are also useful to have a good mix of different drinks if you won't be serving LOADS of people, or for mixers (we use up slimline no problem, but DF prefers regular so I just have cans of that as HE won't drink a whole bottle on his own - the packet of cans is usually used up by Easter).

The year it was my due date on Christmas Day was the only one where I had dinner in my DGPs house. (They live near us, well now just my DAunt in the family home, and we always visit on 25th, but can't eat there as it's "disloyal" to both sets of DPs 2.5 hours away ). I was under pressure to sit down and relax (i.e. glass of sherry in the sitting room with the DGPs) when I wanted to be in the kitchen making gravy (both to stand, didn't know why, but also to enjoy the gossip and chat of the various DAunts and DUncles in the kitchen), but I had 2 servings each of turkey and pudding as I could finally eat again (DD had dropped!) and a LOT of laughter until I couldn't manage the pains anymore myself (I pleaded exhaustion to leave, my 4 month old DCousin was rolling around the floor still in great form at almost midnight!!). They were all VERY surprised to be woken to phonecalls in the morning to say that Chuckles (our name for the bump) was now here .

Champagne and going to parents for the dinner. Don't have the stress of cooking that way. Tidying up we leave to the men.

I think it's always nice to have elegant outdoor decorations greeting your guests, and this usually means less is more.
We usually have a modest amount of white lights framing our roofline . I also love tasteful greenery, such as a boxwood wreath or fir needle garland. Then, I fill planters with rosemary bushes and top them off with oversized red bows.

My top tip for Christmas is not to stress! I used to get into a right tizz about everything being perfect. Then, one year, after a lot of other things going on, I didn't have the time or energy to stress about little things. And that year, because there was so much less pressure, everything was perfect!

I think the secret of hosting the perfect Christmas is to only have people around the table that you really want there. There is then so much less pressure to make everything "perfect" and if things do go wrong you can laugh about it rather than feel stressed. Nobody should feel stressed on Christmas Day.

christmas nightmare.....christmas day and im vv busy building lego star wars,lacing new trainers the trendy way and trying to set a rather large dining table in rather a small house.
in the (rather small)living room is dh ,3 rowdy boys,a huge christmas tree a dog and a cat ......and Grandad.
So im wrapping sausages in bacon and basting turkey and pricking goose roasted potatoes and carving crosses into sprouts whilst chaos is around me......its christmas its the spirit i tell myself.
ds1 then cant find his inhaler hes wheezing like a good 'un ,Grandad you see is a smoker but he smokes cigars!!! anyway crisis averted inhaler found and im back to dinner....Grandad shouts me (hes shouted me at least 50 times before to tell me the tree looks good or what the actor in the film has just said) and i will admit it ...im becoming pissed off irritated vexed you might say .......however i dutifully go into the living room to find grandad .......covered in smoke ,billows off it everyone else is oblivious but grandad is on fire!!!! the end of his cigar has dropped off and is slowly burning away ......so i strike grandad with the tea towel and continue towel whipping him and end my firefighter role by chucking ds3s orange squash on him to be sure the fires out..........my children are looking at me with horror this crazy woman they calll mum attacking their beloved grandfather and dh just looks afraid to be honest truly believing the spirit of christmas had driven me to this behaviour!!
as the story became clearer i was hailed a hero and raised up again in the eyes of my children .....over dinner grandad now wearing an adidas t shirt said 'i knew thered be a good reason why your mum was attacking me'.