Share with AO.com how you get your kitchen prepared for Christmas! £300 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[EllieMumsnet]

Christmas can be a time to be with family, indulge in all your favourite foods, share gifts and have some well needed relaxation. However it can also be quite hectic, particularly within the kitchen all that food has to be stored and cooked somewhere! With that being said, AO want you to share how you get your kitchen ready for the Christmas period.

Here’s what AO have to say: “At AO we’ve got Christmas wrapped up, helping take the stress out of the festive season. We know that Christmas is more than the decorations and the presents, your home has to be ready too. Don’t risk a kitchen disaster when you're elbow deep in sprouts and cranberry sauce!

So deck your kitchen out with our fantastic deals. Think large capacity ovens and cookers for the BIGGEST turkey and all the trimmings, fridge freezers for stocking up on all those snacks and drinks and dishwashers to make that post-Christmas clean up a dream. You can even buy now and pay nothing for 12 months on selected appliances, so you can cook, toast and feast to your heart’s content.

When you shop with AO, you can rest assured we'll make it easy for you, with 1000s of appliances to choose from, delivered and installed in time for the big day. So you can concentrate on planning the best Christmas, ever!”

Do you decorate your kitchen to give it a Christmassy feel? Perhaps you have an ‘eat up everything in the fridge’ dinner to clear some space for the Christmas food? Maybe you buy extra kitchen utensils to ensure you’re not short of anything on the big day?

Whatever you do to get your kitchen prepared for Christmas, post it on the thread below and every MNer who posts will be entered into a prize draw, where one lucky winner will randomly selected to receive a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

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our fridge freezer is far too small for our family so we try and eat all the extra freezer food to make room for party food! we always have a little christmas eve & new year's eve party, just the 5 of us x

I do a kitchen sort out around the end of October, making sure we waste no food by putting things that need eating earlier on the top and after that is when i start stocking up on things that have a long shelf life for christmas, the freezer has a sort out and I tend to not restock bread in the freezer to make room for the extra trimmings that go in there. Years ago the shops used to be shut for ages so you needed to stock up lots but these days i just stock up for about 4-5 days worth so i dont need to shop again until after new year. As for the day, I have my christmas music on while I prep the dinner and tray up in the morning, just leaving me to bung it all in the oven or boil at little intervals when the cooker beeps to remind me, so i dont miss out on too much fun! We dont do decorations in the kitchen but we have an open plan living/kitchen/dining so we can see the from the kitchen! I usually have a piece of christmas cake for breakfast over christmas... but sssh i cut a very slim slice so no one knows!

We have the table decorated for Christmas... :)

I blitz the kitchen so it's spotless and make room in the freezer a month before

I don't really decorate the kitchen although there's usually something hanging in the doorway. I make sure the fridge and freezer are as empty as possible prior to buying the bulk of the food shopping and I have the usual assortment of Christmas glasses, plates, serving platters etc that come out at this time.

Usually I do a big clean of the kitchen before, specifically the oven. I usually try and run down the food in the freezer before hand because then I can fill it with frozen parsnips, Yorkshire puddings, sausages, smoked salmon etc. Also same with the fridge, I meal plan carefully so we don't have a massive amount of stuff in the way for the Christmas food.

I sometimes add some fairy lights to make the kitchen look a little more Christmassy (I left these up well past Christmas last year to see us through the long dark evenings) and sort through the airing cupboard to find our Chrismtas tea towels which make it look a bit more festive too.

Last year we also had to make a last minute trip out to get some more plates as we had guests coming for Christmas and a few of our plates were chipped.

This year by Christmas time we will have our new kitchen so I may find new ways of doing things this year.

I clear as much space in the fridge as possible so that I can cook Christmas dinner foods in advance and store them in there. There's also nothing like some festive flowers to brighten the kitchen up.

The kitchen never gets any preparation for Christmas, it's just not really the sort of thing we bother with

We try and get the freezer down for the Xmas food to fit in.x

We try to make as much room as possible ready for a massive influx of Christmas food and goodies in early December. I use up everything in the fridge/freezer/cupboards so as to free up space. Even so, I still have to cram extra things above the cupboards due to there never being enough room

I don't decorate the kitchen & I don't tend to have that much in my freezer so don't need to clear it out ready for Christmas food.

A thorough spring-clean before Christmas to make room for everything over the festive period!

We have a kitchen diner and this is where our Christmas tree is, so we have that and also lots of festive candles - love the smell of Christmas!

We eat up everything in the fridge and freezer, defrost, then fill up with Christmas food. We have a kitchen diner with 2 windows with very deep window-sills so we have a mini Xmas tree in one window and some festive greenery in a giant vase in the other, we string up some lights and paper chains, but we only have one small table decoration as the table is always groaning with dishes of food.

Our kitchen is relatively clutter free all year round as we live a relatively minimalist lifestyle these days. I don't think we'll be decorating the kitchen, but I may hand a single strand of fairy lights on the supporting fireplace wall above our oven. We like to go by the phrase "less is more"!

I like to keep worktops nice and clear for baking and cooking. The cats don't agree with this and like to sit on the counters, despite lots of "shooing".

We eat everything out of the freezer / fridge so we have space for Christmassy food. All cold drinks are kept outside the back door in a little plastic shed if no room in our tiny fridge.

I'll also make sure we have stock of all of the necessary kitchen goods like foil, cling film, washing up gloves, fairy liquid etc.

have never decorated the kitchen, always try to make sure extra room in the fridge and freezer. Apart from that, not much else.

I love getting ready for xmas. I decorate the whole house at the start of December (or earlier if I get too excited). The kitchen doesn't get much but I do enjoy lighting nice smelly candles.

In terms of xmas organisation I always get an ocado food delivery on 23rd December after dc have gone to bed. Then we stay in xmas eve watching TV, playing board games etc and dc write thank you letters for Santa that they'll leave under the fireplace with a small chocolate or cake.

I try to do as much preparation in advance as I can so sometimes I'll do Jamie Oliver's 'get ahead gravy' a week before and sometimes I'll par boil the potatoes the night before. I have done xmas dinners for over 25 years now so have a good routine now. The dc unwrap and play with their presents while I cook but I'm really lucky to have a range cooker so the turkey can go in the large oven and the trimmings in the smaller oven. At the end there's always a mad rush of boiling veg and stirring veg while dh carves the turkey.

My table's always well decorated on xmas day with gold runners, reindeer napkin holders and lots of candles.

Everything gets tidied and decluttered - this includes the fridge and freezer, and eating all the 'old stock' to provide room for christmas food and other goodies. No Christmas decs in there though

we have a little tree that goes on top of the dining table! i try not to buy too much freezzr food because christmas i need the spacE!

We don't decorate the kitchen, but we do try to use up food from the freezer and cupboards to make room for Christmas and New Year stuff.

We have already started running down the freezer to make room, nearer the time I will batch cook a few meals so that we can just defrost and heat on the busy days in December.

We don't decorate the kitchen but we do have Christmas tea towels, cups, oven gloves etc so that sort of decorates the room a bit and they all go out when the decorations go up

I always freeze some ice packs for cool boxes so that I don't worry about running out of fridge space particularly for drinks.

I start to use all the frozen items from my freezer, all those extra portions of lasagne/shepherds pie/roast beef from the Sunday roast that are taking room up will be used for family teas. I will do the same for my fridge, those half eaten jars of mayonnaise and beetroot. The 'the list' is 'fridge magnetted' to the door, and the countdown begins.

The fridge freezer will get defrosted, the bicarb/vinegar mix will coat my oven overnight.
December begins, the list starts to get populated- frozen parsnips/peas/goose fat roasties/stuffing balls/ and any other veg which dear old Bessie produces. The turkey is ordered, the pigs in blanket ingredients bought. A couple of days before my on-line shop should arrive, and by fridge should look fit to burst with my festive feast. So the decision now is do I need to order that 'american style' fridge freezer, new microwave, after all you need to celebrate in style.

I go on my Christmas mode, I start with a thorough clean then it's decorated with care ( no trimmings near the cooker)I know I'm bonkers but it's only once a year, I decorate the windows and the windowsill, the doors get decorated too.Then it's the chairs they get tarted up with their own Christmas hats this just leaves the table which I transform from plain wooden everyday look into a wonderful Christmas extravaganza.

empty the freezer, for all the good food that goes in (all be it briefly) for the festive period