To-do list: Your countdown to Christmas

22 DECEMBER

• Create your Christmas playlist (Avoid Boney M)
• Buy cut flowers so that they have time to open
• Make stuffing and freeze (can be made a week in advance)

Try: Buttery roast turkey with mushroom-and-sausage stuffing and roast plums.

23 DECEMBER

• Shop for all your ingredients, except the salad items
• Make festive biscuits and store in an airtight container
• Stock up on ice and make edible flower-and-fruit ice or frozen coolers

Try: Shortbread biscuits with lime icing.

24 DECEMBER

• Buy all the salad ingredients
• Make decorations: spray eucalyptus leaves, fynbos and pine cones gold or silver to arrange on the table
• Polish the glasses and set the table
• Make desserts that need setting or chilling time
• Make the components of your cakes, especially layered cakes. Wrap all the components in clingwrap to assemble on Christmas morning

Try: Meringue cake with cream cheese icing and caramel cornflake crown

25 DECEMBER

Early morning

• Make the dressings for salads
• Make the starter (assemble just before serving)
• Make all the sides (assemble just before serving)
• Make the potatoes and heat in the oven just before serving (If you are making roast potatoes, parboil and freeze a week ahead)

Try: Hasselback potatoes.

2 hours before lunch

• Place the meat in the oven (allow for 30 minutes’ resting)
• Assemble all sides
• Prepare all the salads
• Assemble cakes

Try: Naartjie-glazed gammon with blueberries and star anise

26 DECEMBER

And now for the leftovers...

Find our leftovers recipe collection here.

DISCOVER MORE FESTIVE FEASTING IDEAS HERE.