How I do Christmas dinner.

Christmas dinner is probably my favourite meal of the whole year. I love everything about it: the planning, shopping for it, cooking, eating it and the leftovers too. I have been making my family Christmas dinners for as long as the kids have been alive barring one year when we went away for Christmas with my dad and his partner and I don't want to brag but I haven't had any disasters or complaints yet.

I do a lot of preparing beforehand when it comes to making Christmas dinner, making sure I don't forget anything. I have been shopping for the Christmas food, drinks and treats for the last couple of months. Adding a few little extras to my normal weekly food shop so haven't noticed that much difference in the bill but hopefully will notice it on the big Christmas food shop which is being delivered later this week. I keep thinking I have everything in the online basket but keep remembering things that we need.

I cook some of our meal on Christmas eve and then I can just warm things up on the big day, things like stuffing, gravy, mashed potato and pigs in blankets. I peel and chop the veggies ready to cook the next day and on the evening of Christmas eve I will cook the turkey and whatever other meat we are having. I also get the kids to lay the table, they enjoy doing it and on Christmas eve we always have a takeaway sat in the living room when all the jobs are done. 

I always cook way more pigs in blankets, stuffing, turkey, parsnips and roast potatoes than we need. They're our favourite items from a Christmas dinner and are great to have over the next couple of days. This year we have the normal pigs in blankets and some maple flavoured one's which I got from Asda to try out. I have got about 5 different types of stuffing, the normal sage and onion balls then a couple of fruity flavoured one's and other one's.

On Christmas morning after we've opened our presents I head off to the kitchen, put some music on and get on with cooking of course with a glass of Bucks Fizz to help me along. My family know now to stay out of the kitchen until I start shouting for someone to do a bit of washing up, I like to tidy as I go as much as I can.

I'd like to say I have exact timings for everything but I don't, once it's cooked it's cooked however long it takes. I haven't mastered the art of having everything ready at the same time, thank goodness for the microwave. We usually end up sitting down to eat at about 3pm.

What we will be eating on Sunday for our Christmas dinner:

Meat: Turkey, pork and maybe beef.

Veggies: Mashed and roast potatoes, sprouts, swede, carrots, broccoli, cabbage and roast parsnips.

Sides: Pigs in blankets and stuffing.

Sauces: Gravy, mint sauce, apple sauce and cranberry sauce.

We don't bother with Yorkshire puddings on a Christmas dinner, I think we have more than enough to eat. There will be Christmas pudding at some point but probably not until much later on or even the next day.

Once my bum hits the dining room chair my work is done. Stu and the girls do the tidying and washing up and the next time I venture into the kitchen it is tidy and the leftovers have been put in Tupperware boxes. It's like magic, lol.

This year will be different when it comes to eating our Christmas dinner as Becky is working a night shift so she will be taking her Christmas dinner to work to reheat as she can't eat a big meal when she first gets up and if she does it always makes her sleepy. It's sad but I am sure we will still have plenty of family time over Christmas.

What are you doing for Christmas this year? Will you be cooking?