Festive Hosting Tips and the Perfect Christmas Foodie Gift
If you haven’t read my last couple of posts - read here - I’ve decided to combine two of my loves, food and art, by creating limited edition seasonal prints inspired by scenes from my kitchen, dining table, and travels during that time of year. Each print will have an accompanying post on Substack whether that be a recipe, food story, or how-to guide.
This Dinner Party Table print shows the table laid, drinks poured, and food waiting to be eaten for a festive dinner at my family home. It’s made using coloured graphite pencil, and is available in both A4 and A3 as a giclée print on 210gsm Innova Décor Smooth Art Paper, printed in Islington.
If you’d like to buy this Dinner Party Table print (or others), head over to my Etsy shop. I think they’d make the perfect Christmas gift for the foodies in your life - yourself included!
Festive Hosting Tips
Some mishaps can’t be avoided when hosting. Like the time my mum accidentally served the sticky toffee pudding with the gravy jug instead of salted caramel sauce. Or the time she dropped a whole apple pie on the floor whilst getting it out of the fridge. Some, however, can be avoided. Like the time I forgot about the potatoes and found them still in the oven the next morning. Or the time we made jelly and it was still completely liquid when it came to serving.
Here’s a few tips to see you through the festive (or any) hosting season, relatively unscathed:
Let your guests help
It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I’m a huge control freak in the kitchen. Whenever anybody asks if they can help, my visceral reaction is “no thanks, I think I’m good actually!” - the only time I don’t struggle to say the word “no”. Not only is allowing people to help good exposure therapy for all my fellow control freaks, but it also helps everyone feel included in creating the dinner, and could also actually take a few things off your plate. Obviously, don’t give them something that will ruin dinner if done wrong - the stakes are high at this time of year, don’t concede all of your power…
Now is not the time to try a new, untested recipe (see jelly incident above).
Save yourself the stress and potential embarrassment, it’s not worth it at Christmas. I’ve found that most people are just grateful to be cooked for when they go for dinner at someone’s house, so don’t feel like you need to overcomplicate things by deciding that now is the time to learn how to make meringue, soufflé, or a croquembouche.
Do what you can the day before
Prep your veg, make your gravy, write to do lists with cooking times so that you don’t forget anything (see potato incident above) or end up serving dinner at 10pm - we’re in England, not Spain after all. Choose a dessert that can be made the day before too, only needing to be topped with some whipped cream before serving. My mum also always insists on laying the table on Christmas Eve and I understand why, it’s just one less thing to worry about on the day and if your Christmas table is anything like ours, then there will be a fair amount of furniture rearrangement in order to fit everyone. The same goes for any dinner party, actually, if the table looks pretty, then you’re halfway there!
Relax and enjoy yourself!!
Assuming that you don’t have the king and queen coming over for your Christmas dinner, but your nearest and dearest, I’m going to tell you to relax; there’s nothing worse than being at dinner with a stressed host (speaking as said stressed host). Pour yourself an extra glass of fizz or sherry and indulge in the very Christmas spirit that you have created around the dinner table. The washing up can wait until the morning, unless you’re my mum, then it definitely cannot wait and we will all be enlisted in cleaning up any evidence that the kitchen has ever even been used before we’re allowed to go to bed :)