Planning Your Menu

     I hope by now you've had a chance to have a look at 101 days to Christmas. What is great about that planning tool as opposed to mine is it's going into keeping you organized with all of this, while I've kind of diving in with lists upon lists, which is actually my typical organizational style...if you can call it that.

     Today I'll be jumping into Holiday meals. The food that surrounds Christmas plays an enormous role in traditions in my home, and likely yours too. My husband and I got very lucky when we got together, that our traditions we grew up with that meant the most to us, didn't conflict in the slightest. In some cases you make your own traditions out of necessity, we simply tweaked ours.

     When it comes to planning the menu, some people find themselves focused on the big turkey dinner, then scramble at the last second because they remembered the rest. I tend to try and lay our a plan for 3-4 days. Christmas eve, Christmas, and Boxing day for sure, if you want to throw the day after boxing day into the mix because you work, or have zero desire to be out that day, be my guest. This is how I lay it all out.

Then I add my Traditions

And then fill in the blanks

      I generally work Christmas Eve, so I need something I can have ready to go in advance, also I'm generally poultried out by the end of the season, so beef soup is a great choice, 

     Christmas day, lunch should be light, if it's there at all. The other option, have the turkey dinner a lunch, and then if anyone recovers enough to want to eat later, it's a free for all. 

     I don't know about you, but by boxing day, I'm beat, and it's a heat and eat kind of day. I tend to do just that, and do up my table as a buffet. 

     December 27th, it's all about leftovers, and a soup I chuck together, by literally dumping remaining leftovers from the turkey dinner (except all the turkey, I'll be swimming in that for at least a couple more days). I'm also back to work that day, with a big potluck to help us survive the boxing day insanity. 

    Thus concludes making your menu, keep in mind, this can very well change as you get closer to the big day, but what's great is where you're starting early, you can handle curve balls. On my next post, we'll make a master grocery list, and I'll teach you ways to stretch the budget further. Also feel free to comment below, or ask questions, for example I'm expecting "what are pasties"from some one, because I always get that question lol.