The holiday season is a wonderful time of year. But for many people, it can also be a very stressful time. If you’re hosting a holiday meal, you may be feeling overwhelmed by all the planning and cooking that needs to be done. But don’t worry, there are plenty of ways to stay out of the kitchen and make your cooking stress-free.
Do you feel like this by the time Christmas rolls around?
What can I do to save stress in the kitchen?
Some of these ideas may not be in your budget right now but there is always next year!
Unless you truly like spending hours in the kitchen here is the secret – Delegation!
- You could book ahead and take the immediate family to a restaurant for your celebration dinner. This can be so much fun. Often the restaurant is decorated and the staff are in a holiday mood. Usually it is a set meal, and while a more costly option than a regular restaurant meal you do have the advantage that you can just turn up, enjoy the meal, and leave and bonus, there is no clearing up to do.
- You can buy many pre-prepared dishes from pre-chopped vegetables to ready-made gravy, through to a complete entree to cook from frozen. Some stores can even deliver practically your entire meal.
- Ask the family what they like. If they could choose only one holiday side dish what would it be? You might discover that you have been cooking dishes that you don’t really need to.
- If you have older children or a spouse – you could teach each one to cook their favourite holiday dish and then delegate it to them to do.
- Pot-luck. This seems to be a popular idea in North America and is similar to delegate above. Each visitor has to bring something for the meal. BTW if you are invited to do this, you could shop your dish and jazz it up.
Buy the cookies! And the gingerbread house, and the stollen, even the Christmas cake if you do one. If buying it makes life easier then do it. If you want to keep up with the neighbours and pretend it was home-made then you can always fake it. It’s pretty easy to jazz up a cake mix with a few eggs and milk, and a little sugar. No one is going to know unless you tell them. If making cookies takes too much time or energy then buy, buy, buy! (Unless you want to . . . )
How to deal with Holiday Perfectionism.