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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Well i always have a good clean, and search out all the christmas themed baking goodies, table cloths and napkins, and i soak all the winter fruits ready for my homemade rum christmas cake, very exciting time in the kitchen !

I clean everything, including the best part of a day on the oven, think this year I might invest in a professional clean.

We end up playing fridge tetrus, and hoping it's cold enough to just put stuff in the garage/outside to keep it cold! (the year all the beer and wine was stored in the snow outside the backdoor was pretty good for space saving!)

The Christmas themed kitchen roll is used instead of the plain stuff.

We usually run down supplies in OCT/ NOV then start buying up again in Dec for christmas. We do a general big clean end of November too

I’ve just this week cleaned out all the cupboards and thrown away half-used bottles of sauce etc from the fridge. Next week I’ll go through the freezers (we have two) and try to start using up food so we have some space in preparation for Christmas.
From early November I start buying a few extras each week so the financial hit is spread out a little.

We have special Christmas tea towels, aprons and accessories that come out every year, and some ornaments/vases for the window sills. We try to put a poinsettia or Christmassy plant in the kitchen to make it look festive but don't really put decorations up as such. We'll try to use up the contents of the cupboards/freezer in November ready to stock them with plenty of Christmas goodies in December!

I have a 2nd fridge freezer. Freezer is used to store ready to bake homemade mincepies etc. Fridge is full of ingredients I need for cooking (so they don't get eaten), then for leftovers.

I don't do anything different. If the freezer needs defrosting or the oven needs cleaning then I will do it but not because Christmas is coming. We try not to over indulge so there isn't a need to 'eat up' food to make space for other food. It is just business as usual.

Ponsettia, clean fridge and oven, Christmas tea towel.

We do a proper deep clean, including the oven, and sort out all the cupboards/eat everything in the fridge ready for the big shop. Last year we actually bought a new fridge because our old one was on its last legs - it was lovely and shiny and filled with Christmas goodies. Though not sure we can justify new white goods every year!

We have a nice new kitchen extension, so for the first time for a while it's our turn to host. I'll clean the kitchen and bring in extra chairs, put the tree up, and fill the fridge and freezer to within an inch of its life with food and drink. We will draft in a second microwave. No body will go hungry or thirsty, and everyone will chat and laugh a lot. That's Christmas for us. I don't think anyone will be checking whether my cupboards are tidy (though, actually, they are, given kitchen is new).
I try not to overthink all this really.

I have a clear out of the fridge to make room and give it a good clean.
I’ve got a small set of fairy lights that go up on a window.
My husband makes sure we are well stocked up with wine!

Clean out the fridge and freezer and try to eat all the food in it so it can be empty to stuff with christmas goodies!

We eat our way through the boring stuff in the freezer so we can empty a drawer, then fill it with Christmas food.
Fairy lights on the mantlepiece above the cooker.
Big plates and bowls washed and in the cupboard ready for serving snacks/canapes/Christmas dinnner.
Christmas cookbooks to hand on the shelf.
So exciting!

We don't usually have Christmas at home but i love everything to be spick and span and looking festive.

A wee Christmassy teatowel. Fresh flowers/Wreaths.

my kitchen is tiny so there's not much i can do really other than clear the cupboard to make as much room as possible for all the xmas extras

Like others, eat up freezer contents. I always make gingerbread muffins (Nigella) early December; the smell is so festive. Also I make Christmas cake and then millionaires shortbread, etc.

No Christmas decorations in the kitchen, but I do shift to festive napkins and I would shift to festive crockery except I don’t have any...

In our kitchen we usually have a mini Christmas tree in the window as the kitchen in at the front of our house!

We don't do that much, just try and clean it and declutter it and put some tinsel on the clock.

Defrost freezers, clear out old jars from fridges. Hopefully have a food cupboard clear out too. Christmassy kitchen roll and tea towels.
And a massive food stock up of course....

Because my fridge freezer is quite small size, a few weeks before Christmas I am using all food which I have got in it in order to give some room for festive our supplies. Anything that's not need to go in fridge such as fresh vegetables and fruits I would put in the garage for the time been.
I keep my kitchen clean through the year so around Christmas time I can concentrate on decorations and other extras.I love to have a beautiful Poinsetta on my windowsill and little Christmas tree on the table. It's lovely to bake own mince pies and bread and fill kitchen with scent of fresh baked products. I like to declutter my worktops to have a plenty of room to prepare food.

We have the kitchen table decorated and some little decorations put up.

I declutter then go on a crazy cleaning spree
Usually buy nice new crockery. Kitchen gets decorated with all the kids Christmas pictures they have done.

Add some decorations and clean it.

Tidy it! Clear the freezer and wish I had a bigger fridge

I had a really good clean then put some holly and flowers around