Christmas dinner is one of the biggest traditions across the world when it comes to enjoying the festive season.

Christmas is one of the world’s most favourite holidays. A day to spend with the family, eating a delicious meal and enjoying each other’s company, opening gifts and being merry! What’s not to love?

Although it is wonderful to enjoy a meal with your family, especially on Christmas, it’s often not so wonderful for the person who has to cook it! The lead up to cooking Christmas dinner can often be stressful and worrying for the family member who has offered to be the chef for the day.

So, we’ve put together a few tips to help you make the perfect Christmas dinner!

Prepare what you need BEFORE you start

There’s nothing worse than being halfway through cooking before realising you’ve run out of a key ingredient. Or you don’t have a vital kitchen tool that you need. Make sure you check you have everything you need for your Christmas dinner before the day. That way, if you don’t, you’ll have time to run out and grab what you’re missing.

Check what you’ll have to do on the day

there will be things that you can’t prepare ahead of time and that will have to be done when cooking on Christmas. However, don’t worry, as long as you know what those things are, you can be ready for them!

Stick to the recipe

If you’ve chosen a recipe to follow for your Christmas meal, make sure you do just that; follow it! Changing things on the day may not go to plan. And you don’t need any added stress when cooking. Most Christmas day recipes will cover all aspects of the meal; from the turkey to the stuffing, the vegetables to the pie. If you try following more than one recipe, things could go pear-shaped. Remember, you want to make things as easy as possible for yourself. And following one recipe will definitely help with that

Use your best containers

Make sure all your containers are sealed tightly when preparing food for your Christmas dinner. It’s great to prepare ahead of time by doing things such as cutting up all your veggies. But you need to make sure they’ll be safe and sound in the fridge – and to do this, you’ll need good containers to keep out any moisture that could ruin your preparation.

Remember to buy parchment paper

Parchment paper is a kitchen Godsend! It’s a brilliant grease and moisture resistant paper that will stop all your baked goods from sticking to the pan and burning. It makes cleaning up a whole lot quicker and easier as well. It’s sold in most grocery stores and isn’t expensive.

Keep washing your hands

Certain foods, such as raw meat and eggs, often contain bacteria such as salmonella. If you mix a little bit of salmonella in with your vegetables or salad, you could make someone very sick. Proper cooking kills germs and bacteria. But you always run the risk of cross-contamination if you don’t wash your hands, utensils or kitchen surfaces. Make sure you do this throughout your preparation, and when cooking your dinner itself. As you don’t want anyone being unwell when you’re supposed to be celebrating!

Happy Holidays!