Whether you’re preparing for Christmas Dinner with your flat, house or course, there’s no doubt it needs planning. My flat’s Christmas dinner was on the 12th, and after a practice run a few weeks prior (call it a ‘Sunday Roast’ mid-week) I wanted to share with you all the tips on a smooth running dinner, as well as ways to make it as cheap as possible!
Preparing – Shopping lists, Timings
Before you start, make a virtual shopping list. Go on your chosen supermarket’s website and build up a basket of everything you need. This way you can figure out the price of everything and divide it by the amount of people coming. I recommend making your own pigs in blankets, it works out a lot cheaper and it means you can make more! Try shopping at Aldi or Lidl too, that way the total cost is a lot cheaper. Also, chickens are a lot cheaper – you can buy a chicken for as little as £3. For our flat of 12, we brought 3 and it still worked out cheaper than a turkey.
Once you’ve been shopping, sort out timings and allocate little tasks to each person. This will make your life a lot easier, and get stuff done a lot quicker. For us, we allocated people to peeling potatoes, prepping the veg, carving the chickens, etc.
Spaces
Allocate different spaces for different things. Have one area for veg prepping, one area for stuffing/gravy, another for meat and making pigs in blankets. This way it avoids any confusion as well as cross contamination.
Serving
Let people help themselves. Everyone has different things at Christmas so by having a selection and putting it on the table for people to help themselves to is a good idea. Get some serving spoons and some bowls ready for people to pick what they want! Pro tip: pop to Home Bargains or B&M and buy some disposable tin trays to do roast potatoes in, this way you can just serve them in these!
Washing Up
Get everyone involved! Clear the sides and have two people washing up, and the rest drying and packing away. This will get the hard work over as quickly as possible.
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