The holidays always come quicker than we anticipated. Family members roll into town and the festivities begin. If you are the one cooking the meal on Christmas Day, you probably felt the stress level rise as everyone walked in your door. Here are some tips to help you plan and enjoy Christmas.

Cooking probably falls to you on any normal day, but the holidays are anything but normal. You’ll need help and that requires that some things are in place before you can do that. Keep reading to find help for your harried soul.

1. Get Organized – This is a toughie for most people because they don’t know where to begin. The preparation for a holiday meal actually begins weeks before. Right after Thanksgiving, begin making your list of holiday dishes you will prepare for Christmas Day dinner. Go through your cabinets to see what you need. Recipes that call for lesser used items are tops on the list, so you can begin finding those things.

2. Start Shopping – Most family meals require the same types of foods each year. Keeping your kitchen stocked with commonly used staples means not having to run to the store at the last minute. Buy these items for a start: all-purpose flour, sugar, milk, eggs, pasta noodles, baking soda, baking powder, salt. You can even buy meats and freeze them several weeks ahead of time. Around Thanksgiving, sweet potatoes, white potatoes and onions generally go on sale. These can be bought for a low price and they will keep until Christmas.

3. Cook some dishes ahead of time. If you get your Christmas shopping out of the way early, that leaves you with a lot of time leading up to Christmas Day. Use that time to prepare desserts and side dishes. Cakes can be made, cooled and frozen. Do as much of the prep work for cooking as you can in the two or three days before the meal. If you are making a casserole, cook the rice and refrigerate it until you are ready to put it all together.

4. Buy fresh vegetables a week ahead of time. The store will be pandemonium as you get closer to Christmas. Clean, chop them up and freeze them. Do the same with any fruits that you need to use for meals. A day or so before, let them thaw in the fridge.

5. Assign stations on Christmas Eve night. Let everyone know what they will be doing to help prepare the meal. That person is then responsible for cooking the turkey, slicing the cake, setting the table or cooking the vegetables.

There is no need to stress out over the Christmas Day meal. Get yourself going with these five tips so the work is easy to manage.

When the family gets together over the holidays, everyone wants to eat. It’s a fact of life that most gatherings occur over food. This year, hold a Christmas buffet to avoid leftovers filling up the fridge.

The sit down dinner seems to be a tradition at Christmas time. Everyone gathers around a large table (or two) and shares good times. But, who says that every dish known to man has to be on that table? This year, enjoy your Christmas dinner buffet style.

There are benefits to buffet style dining at Christmas and other holidays:

• Few if any leftovers
• Easier cleanup
• Everyone can reach everything – no passing involved
• It’s fun

Even if you have a small space, you can set up a buffet. The main course tables can be positioned in the dining area. Desserts can stay in the kitchen displayed on the counters. Keeping drinks on the table avoids everyone clamoring for them at once and spilling them.

As the host or hostess, you and your family can serve the buffet meal or allow everyone to fill their plates as they please. If you are on a budget and have counted out servings per person, it might be better if you served portions to everyone. So that you get your food also, create your dinner plates in the kitchen and bring them out to eat with everyone after the meal has been served.

The items needed to host a Christmas buffet style dinner can be purchased inexpensively at your local party store. You will need:

• Liquid fuel (Sterno)
• Buffet racks
• Buffet serving pans
• Serving utensils
• Paper products (napkins, dinner and dessert plates)

To avoid burning the food, place a serving pan with about an inch of water underneath the pan that holds the food. Since the food is already room temperature, light the liquid fuel about 30 minutes before the meal is to begin.

Now, let’s get to the table. Lay out silverware (or plasticware) on the table along with your beverage glasses. Each table will have their own assortment of drinks (no wine on the kid’s table, please). You can use place cards so that everyone knows where they are sitting for big gatherings.
With a buffet, after the initial plate of food is served, your job is done. Family members can return at will to the buffet. When the meal is over, provide “to go” boxes so that they can take what is left home with them. Afterwards, simply stack the racks for future use and get rid of everything else. You can stack the glasses in the dishwasher and settle down to watch It’s a Wonderful Life.

The Christmas buffet is a wonderful idea to take the work and cleanup out of a holiday meal. Your family won’t mind and everyone is happy.

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Christmas dinner is a tradition in many countries. Families and friends get together to share a meal and have some fun. This year, if you are hosting the Christmas dinner, try a new approach to the meal. Turn it into a potluck Christmas dinner.

Potluck is an old term dating back a few centuries. It is a meal brought to a gathering to be shared with others. This is exactly what you will be doing with a Christmas potluck dinner. In centuries past, potluck meals used whatever was available but here, we want a bit fancier fare for our dinner menu.

First, the guests can come together to decide what type of menu you are looking to serve. Don’t worry if schedules are too tight for a family meeting. Use email, text messaging, and good old Ma Bell to straighten out the Christmas dinner menu.

Setting a menu in advance avoids everyone bringing a dessert and no side dishes for the Christmas dinner meal. A true potluck would involve everyone bringing something of their choice, but for variety’s sake, make a list first. As each household chimes in on what they will bring, add it to a list and send it out. We want to avoid duplicates if we can.

The main course of turkey or ham or what have you can be cooked at the host home. It proves easier to have the turkey already on site as opposed to transporting him all around town. Another family member can purchase the turkey and come over to cook it at the host home for the Christmas dinner.

You’ll need a place to set up the Christmas dinner choices. Most potluck meals are served buffet style so everyone gets exactly what they want to eat. Depending on the number of Christmas dinner guests, you may need a table or two set up for the menu items.

Place cards next to each dish explaining what it is. Most will be self explanatory but the place cards do help for kids and non-traditional meals. Label the desserts as well.

The dining room table can be set as usual for a potluck Christmas dinner. After the blessing, everyone can form a line to get their food. Ask the dish maker to bring their own utensils for serving so you don’t have to use all of yours. Afterwards, everyone takes their own dish home to wash.

A potluck Christmas dinner saves time and money. Each dinner guest is responsible for a portion of the meal so no one has to do all of the preparation.

By Abby Wilshire

The holiday season is a magical time filled with spirit, family, and joy. Christmas dinner is a time for families to come together and celebrate the magic of the season and their lives together. You are making memories with every Christmas dinner that you have so you want to make sure that you create a truly magical and beautiful meal for your family to enjoy. One of the easiest ways that you can create a special evening is by creating a beautiful table to serve your meal on. By choosing the right Christmas table decorations, you can be sure that you will be creating a memory that you will hold near and dear for many years.

The first thing that you can do to make your table special for Christmas is to choose a festive tablecloth. A great tablecloth is a fantastic Christmas table decoration. You do not have to choose something that is covered in Christmas symbols, but if you choose a tablecloth that is festively colored then it will add instant ambiance to your room.

Your dishware will also help create a special atmosphere for your dinner. Rather than using your traditional dishes, you will want to break out the good stuff. By setting out your good china, you will be elevating the status of the meal that you are preparing.

Another great way to set a beautiful Christmas table is to create a special centerpiece for your table. There are many different Christmas centerpiece ideas that you can pull from. One idea is to take those round ornaments that you hang on a tree and to pile them up in a bowl at the center of the table. You can choose one color of ornaments or you can mix a couple of colors together. Or maybe you want to pile together some pine cones and holly sprigs for a more rustic centerpiece. If you just use a little creativity, you are sure to be able to come up with something special for the center of your table.

Your napkin rings can also really take your Christmas table decorations to the next level. Instead of just leaving your napkins folded on the side of the plate find a great set of napkins to accent your table and secure them with festive napkin rings that have a bit of sparkle to them. That will instantly jazz up your table.

You can also make your dinner guests feel truly special by making place cards for each seat at the table. These do not have to be fancy, but they will help to make your place settings look polished and individualized.

Setting a beautiful table is a bit of an art, but you do not have to be Martha Stewart to make it beautiful. By following these five easy tips, you will be able to take your table from blah to beautiful while having some fun with the creative process. And as you sit down to your holiday meal, your eyes will not only be thrilled to take in the sight of your food, but you will also be thrilled to see how beautiful your table looks!

Need more ideas for a memorable Christmas dinner table? Before you go anywhere, come see our nice selection of beautiful Christmas Centerpieces and other decorating ideas.

By Amy Royce

Planning a Christmas meal can be just as stressful as the Christmas shopping, but it doesn’t have to be. With careful planning, you can enjoy a nice, relaxing Christmas dinner with the whole family. Here is what you need to do.

Plan a location

Figure out how many people will be there. (This will also help you determine how much food you will need.) After you determine how many will be there, you can decide on your location. You don’t want to have it at a place that will be crowded. It will make your guests feel claustrophobic and stressed out.

Plan a time.

You will want to decide a time, as well as the location, well in advance. This will give your guests time to plan their day. Let them know where dinner is going to be and what time everyone should be there. Deciding on a time can be tough. A lot of people go to more than one dinner on Christmas day. You can ask some of your guests what time would be best for them, but remember that you are not going to be able to please everyone.

Plan your menu

When you are the hostess of the dinner, you will provide the turkey or ham as well as some vegetables and a dessert. You can purchase a lot of the food you will need a week before. You will want to wait to get your salads or fruits. Also, clean out your refrigerator a week before. The more room you have in there, the better! You can ask your guests to bring a side dish such as a salad or breads. The last thing you want to do is to wait until the last minute to plan this. Determine who will bring what dish and notify them right away. Christmas is a big holiday. Everyone is busy and stressed out. You don’t want to cause your guests any additional stress by asking them at the last minute to bring a dish!

Do as much as possible in advance

To reduce stress the day of your dinner, you will want to prepare as much as possible a day or two before. Here are a few things that can be prepared early; vegetable trays, cheese and cracker trays, breads, salads, and desserts.

If you have decided to have your dinner at your house, do all of the cleaning on the day before. Get your kids and husband to help you. Be sure to let them know that once it is clean, it must stay that way. Christmas day will be very busy and you will not have time to redo the chores.

Christmas is a time to be with your family and friends at a wonderful Christmas Dinner. It can be stressful to plan and prepare the meal, but if you plan ahead you will find that you and your guests will have plenty of time for visiting and celebrating. I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Amy Royce has been married since 1995 and she has two wonderful children.

She is an affiliate marketer and she has a blog that you can view at
http://amyswordsandthoughts.blogspot.com