Tips On How To Cook The Perfect Christmas Dinner

A few years ago, I found myself "indisposed" over Christmas. To be more precise, confined to the sofa with one leg stuck in the air throughout the entire holiday period, leaving Mr nikkisly and my father jointly responsible for cooking the Christmas Dinner. Between them they did all the necessary shopping - separately. They each bought a joint of beef and several pounds of Stilton cheese. No vegetables or potatoes, no crackers - either the kind that go bang, or the kind that go with a surplus of Stilton. Not even a Christmas pudding! Their combined efforts in the kitchen produced a very non-traditional Christmas Dinner (not to mention vast quantities of black ...

1. Don’t. 2. If you have to, remain sober. 3. Not sober? Don’t be over ambitious. 4. Check size of turkey in relation to size of your oven. 5. Only invite guests that drink too, then they won’t notice the state you’re in. 6. Lower the lights so they can’t see the cat’s hairs in the first course. 7. Pour plenty of wine in the gravy to camouflage alien flavours. 8. Try to eat something yourself to soak up the alcohol intake in your blood. 9. Wear waterproof mascara for the inevitable moment when you cry/sweat. 10. Don’t ever get talked into doing it again. Christmas 1993. My still ...

Every year I do the same.After the 5.30 Christmas eve mass we treat the kids (and us )to Kentucky fried chicken on the way home,so no cooking tea ....lovely !Then ,amid all the other little jobs of last minute wrapping ,opening this years bottle of Baileys e.t.c, I start to peel and prepare the vegetables,prepare the big bird for its overnight stay in the oven,put the Christmas vino in the fridge (that's if I remember,9 times out of 10 it usually gets stuffed in the freezer half an hour before dinner ,and if we go all out I plonk 2 bottles in the freezer,forget about one and find it shattered and exploded all over the shop)make sure the wine glasses are all nice and ...