Share your inspiration for Christmas Day food and drink with a difference - chance to win Lidl vouchers NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

The team at Lidl have their festive food all ready and waiting - now they want to know how MNers make Christmas lunch memorable for all the right reasons. They’d love to hear how you change things up on Christmas Day to make your meal extra special and please all of those celebrating with you - without breaking the bank.This can include main dishes, sides, puddings, and drinks.

Will you be going down the goose route this year, or opting for some seafood? Or maybe you have an interesting turkey treatment you'd like to share. If you are catering for vegetarians or other dietary needs, what options have gone down well - do you tend to do veggie variations on a roast or something completely different?

What about sides - do you have a cunning way with sprouts that makes everyone love them? Or a potato dish that knocks the usual roasties into a hat. For dessert, do you have a Christmas pudding variation? Or something different entirely that you always end your Christmas lunch with?

Drinks-wise, what's top of the drinks list for you? Do you create mocktails for the youngsters or anyone needingnon-alcoholic options? Or do you have an alternative to the traditional Buck's Fizz or a special version of mulled wine that sets you up for the day?

Inspire others with your personal takes on Christmas Day food and drinkbelow and you’ll be entered into a prize draw where you could win one of five £50 Lidl vouchers.

Thanks and good luck

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

Thanks to Lidl we tend to have a German theme! Stollen is my favourite & tastes good with custard, ice cream, brandy sauce, or just as cake of course. The gingerbread house is always a hit with the children. We are quite traditional with our main course with lots of lovely fresh veg.

I'll be honest I don't enjoy cooking most of the time, but Christmas is special so I put more effort in.
Mustard and treacle ham, rolled bacon and cocktail sausages (deconstructed pigs in blankets), chestnut stuffing, mint and chili stuffing, turkey, gravy, apple sauce cranberry sauce. Carrots, sprouts and roast parnips and pureed parsnip with cream and nutmeg. Mmm. And Christmas cake (already made and being fed brandy). Dinner usually happens around 2pm with bil, Dh, me and the kids. We see my family on boxing day and do it all again. Happy, happy days.

We always have a "pot of gold" before christmas dinner with a collection of golden treats. So throughout the year we try and find the best yellow recipes to have with it. Last year DC presented us with bananas as they tried to join in

we just see what we feel like a week before theres no planning or tradition its super spontaneous

Nigella's Chocolate Orange Christmas cake. No one in my family likes a traditional fruit cake, but this is always demolished within hours!

We always have beef and gammon this is boiled with dill then baked in a honey,orange juice, white wine, mustard and demerara sugar sauce. For the evening we have cheese ,crackers, pate,crisps sausage rolls stollen and a home made country ham pie

We have turkey with cranberry sauce and I make mulled wine in the slow cooker. Makes it feel christmassy having hot mulled wine on the go. We pull crackers and wearing the hats and reading the jokes is a must!

We like to keep everyone happy by having a full plate! This means turkey, pigs in blankets (with extra bacon), several types of vegetables and all the sauces!

Herby roast potatoes are lovely - boil spuds for 5 mins, drain, roll in mixture of whatever herbs take your fancy, then roast in oil/fat for 50 mins (gas 180).

Use sprouts in coleslaw in place of cabbage for festive themed leftover cold cuts.

We usually get a Turkey Crown from Lidil for Christmas - very nice! Along with a Christmas pudding and some of the Frozen Veg Roast & Potatoes. I find the meal is just as lovely with the help of ready prepared items and without the added stress of spending hours in the kitchen pre-paring it makes for a less stressful day. And there isn't so much washing up to do either. I have two very young children, so mummy spending hours in the kitchen is not something they appreciate anyway, they want you spending time with them - which is what Christmas is for. This may change when they are older and we can all chip in in the kitchen and spend time as a family pre-paring. We also get some nice snacking things in too to have throughout Christmas week.

Child friendly options would be great, my daughter doesn't like meat much and it feels a bit rubbish to give her a meal that she's not keen on on Christmas day. Last year she made her own star shaped pizzas with her Granny and she was thrilled!

Also we have some veggies in the family, the standard option seems to be nut roast. Different kinds of roasts would be great, I think last year we had parsnip and orange, chestnut etc. They were delicious.
A variety of stuffing flavours too!

And some decadent desserts for those that aren't keen on Christmas pudding.

I always do chestnut stuffing in memory of my dad. However when we were children we had to peel the boiling hot chestnuts by hand, now I use vacuum packed pre-peeled ones ! I just heat them up in a pan with a little bit of milk and break down the lumps, serve on the side.

We generally have beef Wellington on Christmas Day. Most of us find turkey a bit dry and boring whereas a gorgeous, big piece of beef is a really special treat!

It's all about the puddings in our house - chocolate and more chocolaty stuff

We've got family staying so I want to be as prepared as possible this year.
I always want to have a perfect gravy for Christmas day so I'll make that and some homemade stuffing in advance. I don't usually bother with stuffing, but everyone else seems to love it.

I don't like Christmas cake or Christmas pudding, so normally have chocolate cake and ice cream.

Our Christmas dinner pretty traditional most years, the one thing we do that is different is our pudding. We have homemade Christmas pudding ice cream - the icecream is homemade, not the christmas pudding that's in it. Most simple 'recipe' in the world - 1 lidl xmas pud, steamed. cooled and broken up. 2 tubs double cream, 1 tin condensed milk, 1 glass Lidls version of Baileys. whipped up together, put in a tupperware and freeze, remove half an hour before eating. No stirring to get rid of ice crystals, so simple and very, very delicious. Kids find xmas pud too much, but mixed into ice cream they love it.

These are all brilliant . Would be great to get some more of your twists on drinks - whether we're talking Christmas cocktails, mocktails or something festive with fizz.

A drop of pomegranate molasses in a glass of prosecco is a lovely thing. Add fresh pomegranate seeds for one of your five-a-day.

Put cranberries or pomegranate seeds in your ice cube tray for a bit of added colour in your drinks.

Or, to avoid watering down, frozen lemon and lime slices, grapes, blueberries or raspberries.

Love a drop a full measure of chambourd in the bottom of my fizz.

Or pear Bellini made with pear purée (because, lets face it pears often go soft before you want them!)

I love ginger liqueur at Christmas too, or the Stones non alcoholic equivalent, made in to a hot toddy with honey and lemon. What's more Christmassy than ginger?!

Well, baileys probably. With ice. Don't mess with the baileys.

Always a good nut selection! We like a walk after the big lunch to blow the cobwebs off too.

We had a hog roast last year!

We haven't done Christmas for a few years as my eldest son was diagnosed wth cancer and subsequently died nearly three years ago. He was in hospital during his illness too over Christmas.

This year I think I will be brave and be at home for Christmas and try and make a lovely day for my other son (who at 19 is beyond believing in Father Christmas).

It's hard to celebrate what is a very family protested day when your child has died. But my eldest son loved Christmas and so we will try to love it again.

Most likely to be just 3 of us, my Dad, son and I. My favourite bit of the meal is a good bread sauce with the turkey. We only have it once a year so I make a fab one with lemon and apricots. Turkey and all the trimmings.

My son used to make the Christmas pudding every year - that will be something I won't be able to do. Will make a steamed treacle pudding instead.

A Terry's chocolate orange has to be eaten in the day.

Getting out Christmas decorations will be hard but I will get a little tree this year.

There are around 20 of us, the main dish is Turkey but as a vegetarian I like to make something nice for me too. Last year was a festive quiche or two with lots of delicious trimmings. We have an abundance of desserts too. I enjoy decorating the table with sparkles and make it a memorable experience. I always take a photo of everyone at the table to put on my calendar for the following year