Christmas Dinner (preparing in advance)

bluebag

Tomorrow I will brace myself and gird my loins to bake mince pies, peel and cross the sprouts and do amazing things with the spuds. I shall defost all manner of goodly things from the depths of the chest freezer fearlessly! ( well I could easily fall in!)

shellsuit

lostinrates wrote: »

Urgh, that's what I should be doing...laying the table and polishing silver :o:o

We're having 12 people and the table in the dining room seats 6, so me and hubby have to get the other table out of the shed, rearrange the room to get them both in, assemble the table, wash all the crockery and glasses, get the table cloths, napkins adnd crackers out then set it all.

Pity it's hubbys bday today if he thinks he won't be helping!

Can't lay the cutlery because we'll be using it tonight and tomorrow so that will be a job Christmas Day morning to fling it all over the table :rotfl:

TudorRose

Got the sausage meat out of the freezer this afternoon & collected turkey & gammon from butcher.
Will be doing most of my prep tomorrow. Will make stuffing & when cool stuff turkey & prepare it readyy for the oven on Christmas morning. Will boil giblets to make stock foe gravy.
Will cook gammon ready for buffet meal with family on Boxing Day.
Will attempt to make up the ginger bread house kit I bought from Lidl a few weeks ago ready for grandsons' visit on Boxing Day.
Fresh veg will be prepared on the day.

ginnyknit

Have all veg part cooked and frozen, ham and lamb out to defrost.Will cook the lamb slowly tomorrow thus warming the house in the process! Got Dgs so can't do much till he sleeps. Going to boil the ham tomorrow so i can bake it with its brown sugar and mustard crust on the day. All under control - She says with her fingers crossed behind her back :rotfl:

SaveTheCheerleader

Dippypud wrote: »

Turkey was cooked yesterday, today it's cooled, sliced, packed into portion sized bags and popped into the freezer.

Sat morn take out number required, (any surprise guests easily delt with, take out another pack).

Stuffing mixed into balls and frozen also.

Turkey carcass in SC for stock for gravy, pigs in blankets rolled, bagged waiting in freezer.

All tickkedy boo here, wrapped and ready for the Man in Red.

Wow, that is organised!

I'm cooking the ham as we speak, it's taking ages to boil though

angeltreats

Most of it will be done on Christmas Day. Tomorrow I'll make dessert (creme brulee), braised red cabbage, a loaf of brown soda bread for the starter, smoked salmon with brown soda, very Irish so a little taste of home for me I'll probably do the stuffing tomorrow too. Oh and some batter mix ready to make waffles for breakfast on Christmas morning.

rachbc

shellsuit wrote: »

Will get the table ready and all set in the dining room.

!

But there are 5 meals between now and then - where will you eat??

I told a fib earlier - yesterday I made the breadcrumbs for bread sauce and stuffing as i had a loaf that was dried out just enough!

Sublime_2

Mine will all be done on christmas day. As another poster said the prep doesn't take that long. I will be making HM bread sauce, and perhaps cranberry sauce, but doesn't take long at all.

Penelope_Penguin

Noctu wrote: »

Just wondering what everyone is doing today, or has already done, to prepare for Christmas Day?

Getting the root veg out of the ground has been enough of a job :eek:

We'll stuff the turkey, and finish all the baking today. DS made about 7000 pigs in blankets, and they're frozen.

We stuff the turkey in advance so that we don;t need to get up on christmas morning and do it - DS fires up the Rayburn and puts it in, so we have an extra half hour in bed

DH and I really enjoy cooking the meal on Christmas morning, and the children are now old enough to be keen to help, so we don;t do anything else in advance

There's more tips in this thread; I'll merge this later to keep ideas together.

ChocClare

ginnyknit wrote: »

Have all veg part cooked and frozen, ham and lamb out to defrost.Will cook the lamb slowly tomorrow thus warming the house in the process! Got Dgs so can't do much till he sleeps. Going to boil the ham tomorrow so i can bake it with its brown sugar and mustard crust on the day. All under control - She says with her fingers crossed behind her back :rotfl:

Ooh, Ginny, what do you do with your ham? I generally do mine in the pressure cooker, but haven't ever baked it afterwards and mustard and brown sugar sounds delish. Have you a recipe to share????