How to prepare for Christmas dinner

You don’t need to feel overwhelmed by Christmas. With some advance planning, it’s possible to prepare for Christmas dinner with minimum stress.

This post contains affiliate links. If you click on one of these links and make a purchase, I receive a small commission at no cost to you. Click here for my full disclosure policy.

Growing up, Christmas was a magical time. My grandmother on my mother’s side was very much the matriarch, and the Christmas-hosting queen.

Back then, in the late 1970s, soft drinks were rare and I remember being super excited at the sight of the crates of different flavored fizzy, in their tall, thin, glass bottles, that would suddenly appear in the garage before making their way into the dining area for Christmas lunch.

The house would always be bursting with people, and I would gorge myself on the trifle, laced heavily with sherry, until I could eat no more.

Years passed, as did my grandparents, and Christmas became the domain of my parents.

A cooked breakfast on the barbecue followed by a mid-afternoon meal became the new normal (a typical Christmas experience for those of us in the Southern hemisphere).

That was until a few years ago when I hosted Christmas for the very first time in our new home.

Hosting Christmas is one of those things that, no matter how old you are, makes you feel as though you are finally a grown-up.

I was a little nervous about doing the job, but with some solid organizational skills, I was able to break down the task into manageable chunks which saw me on Christmas Day being ready and able to enjoy myself.

So here I’ll share with you my Christmas dinner preparation which helped make Christmas a success.

Food can be one of the most stressful areas of Christmas preparation, but it definitely does not have to be.

In New Zealand we are super lucky to have Christmas in the middle of summer, which does of course influence the type of food we eat and also when we eat it – for many families a Christmas brunch or lunch is biggest meal of the day and the rest of the day is all about filling up on leftovers!

(Just the two of you this Christmas? Check out these Christmas dinner for two recipes.).

Getting ready for Christmas dinner starts in early November – if not before.

Here’s the Christmas dinner timeline I followed.

November: Finalize your Christmas menu

• Check all guests for any specific dietary requirements so you can plan accordingly.
• Brainstorm a Christmas menu.
  When you are thinking about what you want to do, there’s one main thing to consider- how far in advance you can prepare the dish.
  You want to minimize the time you spend in the kitchen on Christmas Day by making sure as much as possible can be done the day before or even the day before that.
  Other factors to consider include any childhood favorites of either your husband or yourself. Making these foods is a great way of creating your own family Christmas traditions.
  I still love a good trifle for Christmas dessert. Here’s 30 Christmas trifle recipes to check out.
• Confirm your Christmas menu – take the time now to record any links to recipes and also to make a grocery list of everything you need.
• Check your serving dishes, bowls, plates, cutlery and glasses and ensure you have enough for everyone now you know who is coming, and also that you have what you need to serve your planned menu on.
  I love having a decluttered home but the downside is not having enough extras when they’re needed. I had to buy another couple of bowls for the salads and borrow some cutlery so I had enough for everyone. If you’re like me, do this now. It’s much easier to do in November (maybe take advantage of Black Friday sales) than in the crazy Christmas rush.
  The following essential items will help you serve up Christmas dinner with style and ease, yet can be used all year round, thus avoiding extra clutter in your home:

• Order your Christmas ham and / or turkey.
• Purchase a ham bag to keep it at its best.

Early December: Rehearse new Christmas Day recipes

• Practice making recipes you have not tried before.
  I chose to leave it this late to ensure that what I wanted to use was in season. You don’t have to practice everything, but it really does help make you feel more comfortable when the time comes for the real thing, as well as adjust your Christmas dinner schedule when you discover how long it really takes you to prep it or if you need to adjust cooking times for your oven.
  Make notes of any thing like this that you discover for when you create your timeline for the day.
  We even bought the steaks and practiced them on the new barbecue to make sure we had the cooking times right!

Mid December: Stock up

• Purchase Christmas groceries with a long shelf life when you do your normal weekly shop.
• Stock up on basic grocery items such as toilet paper and hand soap.

The week before Christmas: Collect all the things

• Collect your ham / turkey
• Create a timeline for Christmas Day food preparation and serving
  If you’ve never done this before, it can be quite a challenging task. Have a list of everything you’re going to make. Aim to have everything on the table 10 minutes before you want to eat, and work backwards from there, considering prep time, cooking time, resting time and plating time. 
• 22^nd December: Defrost your turkey in the fridge and allowing for a couple of days to be safe
• 23^rd December: Do your fresh food shopping

The day before Christmas: Do what you can

• Prepare the dishes that can be done the day before. Don’t underestimate how long this can take. I spent close to six hours on food preparation for my first Christmas dinner
• Cut up any herbs you are using and put them in a container on a damp paper towel
• Check your timings again
• Set the table if possible

Christmas Day: Enjoy!

This will totally depend on what you’ve chosen to make. The key thing is to follow the timing that you’ve set and enjoy yourself!

Our Christmas menu

So in case you’re wondering, this was our exact menu for our New Zealand Christmas brunch. If you fancy a genuine Kiwi Christmas, consider giving this menu a try.

Main meal

• cooked ham which we purchased ready to go (check to see if yours is frozen and if so, make sure you allow plenty of time for it to defrost!).
• gourmet sausages
• filet mignon

We cooked the sausages and steaks on the grill. We planned for two sausages and one steak per person.

• baby potatoes are always delicious and can be boiled up with very little effort. I bought two packs of 700g baby potatoes.
  Once you’ve cooked them, chuck in some butter and finely chopped mint. Coat the potatoes in butter and then tip them into a serving dish.

I then also had three large salads:

• Layered garden salad – this retro salad is a traditional family favorite- my dad even made it for my 21st birthday dinner! This salad tastes best when it’s made the day before, so it’s perfect to ease the Christmas Day pressure.

To get the full effect of this salad, you need to have a bowl like this:

• Chelsea’s famous kumara and bacon salad. Chelsea Winter is an amazing New Zealand chef. Kumara is our word for sweet potato. This salad is ridiculously yummy and also is best made the day before.
• The third salad was a baby spinach and balsamic strawberry salad, with mozzarella balls and pomegranate seeds. The recipe can’t be linked as it was from a magazine, but it was delicious and simple, yet looked amazing. The key thing about this one was that it was super easy to assemble – which was crucial as it was the only salad I made on the day.

Dessert

The main meal was a hit, but of course everyone has two stomachs- the main stomach and the dessert stomach!

• Harking back to my childhood years, I made a trifle for dessert. It was another item I made the day before.  I’ve made it several times since and it always gets loads of compliments as it looks as good as it tastes. To get the full effect of this easy trifle, you need this kind of trifle bowl:

• I also had super simple mini pavlovas which looked amazing and yet were incredibly easy. You need
  • meringue nests or mini pavlovas
  • fresh whipped cream
  • Cadbury Flakes
  • strawberries

Simply fill the meringue nest with cream. Then chop each flake bar into 2-3 pieces (about 5 centimeters or 2 inches long) and pop it in the cream so it’s sticking out. Finally, place a strawberry next to the flake.

• To go really retro (and make my husband happy) I had good old fashioned brandy snaps full of fresh cream.
• To top it off we had fresh strawberries and French vanilla ice-cream!

This was MORE than enough for the eight people and a baby we had for our first Christmas- in fact my husband and I didn’t have to cook for another two days afterwards.

Much of Christmas is about the act of enjoying a shared meal together. Food also creates memories. The dish you try for the first time this year may be the one your children and their children reminisce over for years to come.

The key to having a successful Christmas is to plan your menu in advance, rehearse unfamiliar recipes, stock up as far ahead as you can, and prepare as many dishes as possible the day before.

Then on the day, relax and enjoy the best family day of the year.

The next day? Enjoy some leftovers!

(Check out these Leftover ham recipes).

What do you plan to make this Christmas?