My Epic Christmas Fail

[00swan]

Wow, thank heavens you checked the date

[BevS97]

We had an issue with a frozen turkey one year. I defrosted it i time but it was off and stank when we cooked it.

Fortunately my mother in law had made a ham for boxing day so we had ham with all the Xmas veg.

[Gryff]

I've had a couple of epic fails one year the dogs snaffled the rib roast and another the oven blew up Christmas Eve ever tried to cook a full dinner for 10 on a caravan cooker my parents were visiting and then were heading to Spain for the winter with the caravan probably one of the best dinners we've ever had as it was absolute chaos

[Bootrip2]

We had a power cut last year luckily after dinner but meant we had to open presents with torch!

[Gryff]

The caravan dinner was helped along by mothers stash of homemade sloe and rosemary gin she was taking to Spain

[Bluefish]

Another Christmas fail. Years ago DD and I spent all day creating this gingerbread house, turned our back for 5 mins and one of the dogs took a massive bite out of it.

We do seem to have a lot of kitchen fails

[skalexander]

My parents used to have a gas hob which was fed from a gas bottle, as the house is oil. Mum ran out of gas one Christmas morning when she was cooking for 14... fortunately my Grandad runs the same set up and lives nearby so Dad was despatched to borrow his gas bottle.

Another year, our doggy started bleeding from her lady parts and had to be whisked to the emergency vet. She had a tumour in her uterus which was removed between Christmas and new year - fortunately not malignant. She’s not with us now, but she lived to a good age.

[duchy]

I was woken one Christmas morning by my Mum urgently inviting me to sniff the turkey as she was sure it was rank ... not the best awakening after a very "festive" Christmas Eve on the town. I know we didn't eat it but have no memory what we ate instead. I do remember Mum was mortified and the rest of telling her we weren't that keen on turkey anyway.

I quite like cooking Christmas dinner, it's just a big roast, the only tricky bit is timing all the side dishes at the end. I'd rather cook it alone but my husband likes to get involved and says he wants to, and then panics with the last bits and usually forgets one dish or another ... but it's never a big deal to me.

A few years ago I popped into Tescos Christmas Eve for a lightbulb fifteen minutes before they closed. I was gobsmacked that several families walked in at the same time with two trollies apiece clearing going in to do their "big shop". I'd never cut it that fine !
I like everything bought before Christmas Eve, head out early Christmas Eve morning for bread and then hibernate