First time hosting Christmas

sulphate

Hosting Christmas dinner ourselves for the first time this year - although only for 6 people (including ourselves), no kids.

We're quite good at budgeting for food normally but I have no idea about the price of christmas food, never even done a turkey before. :eek:

Bit of a general question I suppose but would appreciate money and time saving tips?

I'm gluten free so will have to make things like yorkshire puddings etc rather than buy them.

carlamarie_2

Prepare what you can in advance ie most veggies can be chopped and kept in water overnight

Ask people to bring a dish with them. If it's three couples coming ask one to supplie the starter and the other to bring the dessert.
If its single people, you could ask them to bring sides such as pigs in blankets etc (I am completely clueless on gluten free diets, so not sure if you can have these!)

Find out if everyone wants turkey, a lot of people I know only have turkey because its christmas even though they don't like it! They spend a load of money on one and it gets wasted!

Make it clear that the invite is under the bring a bottle category. Booze soon adds up!

Look out for the magazines that come free in supermarkets (should be coming out soon I would have thought) some of their recipes can really spruce up your food. And they always have a section on how to create the perfect turkey, and other meats besides

liz-paul

Not sure if this help budget wise but my MIL always gives me £200 to cover food etc for Christmas as we have everyone to us and do all the shopping and cooking. I find that this more than covers Xmas day food and booze (all day) for 4-8 adults and 2 kids plus all of the other extras we buy for the christmas season and leaves money to spare!

You rarely need as much food as you think. Deffo ask people to contribute booze. Consider a turkey crown rather than a whole turkey. You don't need much of a started as the main is generally so huge (or consider serving your starter as a sort of light lunch a couple of hours before. You don't need much of an evening meal, cheese, crackers, pickles is usually fine.
As long as you won't be tempted to eat it beforehand then stock up on non perishables each week with your regular shop to spread the cost and take advantage of offers...

bluenose1

Main thing is to remember christmas is for you to enjoy as well. Don't do what I did for years, run around after everyone and be too exhausted to enjoy yourself.
I just treat it as a glorified roast dinner. I prepare veg etc night before, often using ready chopped or frozen.
Do what you can before, such as setting table night before. I normally use some ready made desserts -trifle etc to accompany my home made mince pies etc.
Not sure how much I spend out, the turkey is the most expensive part as we get fresh from butchers. Not more than £60-£70 in total for whole meal, we have leftovers in the evening and even more leftovers on Boxing Day.
Good luck

Mazcabs

I am buying one or two bits each week in my main shopping so that I won't be spending a lot on Christmas week i.e stuffing, Christmas pudding, mince pies etc

Birdie85

I second the tip to buy a turkey crown instead of a whole bird, easier to cook as well as less waste! We've been buying them from Morrisons for the last few years and they've been lovely, stuffed and everything. Just follow the instructions on the label and it's done. Easy! We tend to put streaky bacon on top (if not already on it) and a glass of white wine in the foil tray (no washing up!). Yum!

We've hosted Christmas for 6/7 people for the last 4 years and every year we feel more confident and budget savvy. Doesn't have to cost much more than £70 for a lovely meal for 6. There's always too much food so don't buy more than you'd buy for a normal roast dinner. The first year we hosted we must have cooked about 6 big potatoes... we would have had enough with 2! Same with everything else really, the more options you offer, the fewer of each item you'll need.

Start buying things in the run up to Christmas to spread the cost and freeze them, things like fancy stuffing and pigs in blankets etc often end up being yellow stickered so buy them when you see them and put them away, just take everything out to defrost on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day and half the hard work is done!

Oh and leave yourself a little extra time when cooking everything. We found that a full oven takes a little longer to cook so when everything else was ready our roast veg was still looking anaemic! Meat can come out of the oven 30 minutes before serving and wrapped in foil to 'rest' before cutting so use that time to finish off everything else and cook your yorkshires!

Anglea

After experiencing a few unexpected scenarios I would recommend that even if you are cooking everything fresh to buy some emergency frozen potatoes, veg etc because one year we had such heavy snow that the shops were inaccessible during the Christmas week.

Another tip is to make sure you have more than enough foil to line tins, keep things hot etc. and to do it in advance of Christmas day as often they won't unroll properly and are unusable.

I write a timetable for the day - what time to put on the oven, what times to prepare stuff, how long it cooks. Also add everything that will be eaten, put on the table eg cranberry, very easy to forget the obvious things.

I've often overlooked something in the oven and forgotten to serve it.

If you are only using a cooker (I don't have a micro) some puds take far longer than expected to heat up so have a spare big enough pan to use apart from the veg ones.