Holiday Goals: 9 Tips for the Perfect, Festive Christmas Dinner
If you’re cooking a big Christmas dinner this year, check out these tips for the perfect holiday meal! These seasonal tips will help you reach your holiday goals - and so will this wine a connoisseur’s tips on choosing the best wine for a delicious turkey meal.
“How wonderful it would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age,” said Sir John Templeton. “Thanksgiving opens the doors. It changes a child’s personality. A child is resentful, negative-or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw people.”
It’s not just kids - adults, too, radiate happiness and draw people when they’re thankful. And it’s not just Thanksgiving - Christmas also makes people thankful. Okay, enough cheesy (but true) philosophy. For more information on delicious recipes for Christmas, click the book cover with the turkey front and center. For tips on planning a great Christmas dinner and choosing the right wine, read on…
Holiday Goals: 9 Tips for the Perfect, Festive Christmas Dinner
After my hubby and I served a delicious, fun Thanksgiving dinner, we decided we needed to write these tips down so we could host the perfect Christmas dinner one day…
1. Split the Christmas duties. My hubby Bruce took care of the turkey, turkey gravy, table extension and settings, wine pouring, and turkey carving. I made the stuffing, vegetarian gravy, mashed potatoes, and baked yams. To serve the perfect festive Christmas dinner, make sure you divide up the duties and even ask guests to pitch in if needed. Most people really do like to help you reach your holiday goals!
2. Create a Christmas dinner schedule. Here’s what our Thanksgiving dinner schedule looked like for a 6:30 pm meal: 2 pm, butter and stuff the turkey and get it into the oven; 3:30 pm, make two dishes of stuffing to bake outside the turkey; 4 pm, start boiling the potatoes for mashed potatoes; 6 pm, make gravy. We achieved our goals for our holiday dinner because we stuck to our schedule.
3. Plan to run out of oven space. Our oven wasn’t big enough to cook the turkey, two dishes of stuffing, and two huge yams, so we baked the yams first and kept them warm on the bbq. Then we baked the stuffing - and kept the turkey in the whole time. To create the perfect festive Christmas dinner, keep in mind that you only have a limited number of stove burners and a smallish oven! Either create a cooking schedule and find a way to keep the dishes warm, ask guests to bring hot food over, or ask your neighbors if you can use their oven and/or stove.
4. Add time for the turkey. To make sure your guests aren’t waiting extra long for the perfect Christmas dinner, add an extra 45 minutes to your prep time after the turkey is finished cooking. This allows the turkey juices to set after it’s taken out of the oven (20 minutes), time for carving (15 minutes), and time to transfer the turkey pieces to the serving platter (approx. 10 minutes, depending on how fancy your serving platter is). To achieve your holiday goals, allow extra time for everything.
5. Ask guests to bring wine, dessert, or side dishes. Instead of attempting to make the perfect Christmas meal all by yourself, ask your guests to participate! This reduces your stress level, lets everyone try other people’s food, and allows guests to contribute to the meal (most people, it seems, really like to help out by bringing something to share). Wine, dessert, veggie platters, and the guests’ own special dishes are great things to ask for.
6. Serve creamed corn and/or niblets. I didn’t realize until halfway through the meal that the turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and yams really needed a corn side dish. There’s something about corn - especially sweet little niblets - that really complements a Thanksgiving dinner.
7. Create space on the dinner table. Have enough space on the table for serving platters, or designate an extra table off to the side. We had to put our platters of food on a nearby counter, but getting up for more food may discourage guests from second helpings (which could be a good thing, considering how much fat is in a Thanksgiving meal!). Instead of decorating your table with huge centerpieces and extra dishware, consider reserving space for serving platters.
8. Make a fat-free gravy. We found a delicious mushroom, garlic, and onion gravy on the internet that was so easy to make - and it contains much less fat than turkey gravy! But, Bruce whipped up a dish of gravy from the turkey drippings, which made this a perfect Thanksgiving meal for some of our guests (ugh, though…turkey drippings are all fat, blech).
9. Relax and enjoy yourself! This really is the most important tip for the perfect festive Christmas dinner: have a good time, so your guests relax and have a good time, too. There’s nothing worse than a stressed-out host or hostess (so don’t focus on achieving your holiday goals that day or night! Just relax and let it happen).
Choosing the Right Wines at Christmas
Thanksgiving wines can really vary,” says wine connoisseur Derrick Cousins, of Free House Wine & Spirits. “To impress without spending a lot of money, try a red Burgundy from the Cotes de Nuits, which is made from Pinot Noir grapes. It goes quite well with turkey and has loads of flavors that mesh well with the other side dishes, such as mashed potatoes and cranberries.” Derrick also suggests an inexpensive unoaked Chardonnay from BC or Australia.
Red Versus White Wine at Christmas?
“Red versus white wine comes down to personal preference,” says Derrick. “Just think about the food you’ll be eating. In the case of Thanksgiving, you should consider the bird - which is leaner than beef and will therefore pair well with a leaner wine, such as a red Pinot Noir or Barbaresco (from Northern Italy) which is gaining much more recognition lately. Both are lighter on tannins (the ‘drying’ part of red wine) and should not overpower the flavour of your meal.”
Derrick also says that a white Chardonnay is wonderful, because it’ll complement with your turkey but also stand up well with your side dishes (especially a nicely oaked California or French).
“For that pumpkin pie, I’d suggest a dessert wine - a good Sherry or even an Aussie Muscat will pair well due to the rich, sweet and nutty flavors they display.”
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