Christmas without the Chaos (or the cost!)

I have cooked Christmas for a crowd more times than I care to count. Five kids and nine grandkids will do that to a woman. Here's what all those years have taught me: the best Christmas table isn't the most expensive one, or the one that took the longest. It's the one where the cook actually gets to sit down.

So here are my rules, my DO's and DONT's lovelies. Thermomix at the ready.

DO: Build your menu around one showstopper

You do not need five mains. Nobody needs five mains. Pick one hero, a glazed ham, a stuffed turkey, a side of salmon or a whole roasted cauliflower, and let everything else play support.

One big thing is cheaper to buy than five medium things. It's also less work, and it gives you that gasp-worthy moment when it hits the table. My Char Siu Glazed Ham does exactly that, and the glaze takes minutes in the Thermomix. Add a couple of sides, a cracking sauce and something sweet, and you have a feast. Generous, not greedy.

DON'T: Cook too many dishes or get clever for the sake of it

More dishes does not mean a better meal. It means more shopping, more washing up and more food in the bin on the 27th.

Choose a handful of crowd-pleasers you know people love, then make your ingredients pull double duty. A bag of cherries, a bunch of rosemary or a few oranges can thread through three or four dishes and tie the whole table together. Buy less, use it all.

And don't underestimate the classics. There's a reason roast potatoes, glazed ham and a proper gravy turn up every year. It's because they're what everyone is secretly hoping for.

DO: Feed them early

A hungry guest is an impatient guest. Something to nibble and something to sip as people arrive buys you an hour of grace, and nobody notices the main is running late.

This is where your freezer becomes your best friend. All through December I keep a stash of homemade nibbles ready to go: a batch of Christmas Pâté, savoury shortbread, little pastries waiting to be baked from frozen. Made on a quiet weekend, they cost a fraction of anything you'd buy, and they taste like you tried. (You did. Just not on the day.)

DON'T: Feel guilty about shortcuts

Homemade does not mean everything from scratch on Christmas morning. That's not cooking, that's a hostage situation.

Let your Thermomix do the hard yards: the custard, the pastry, the sauces, the relish. Ask guests to bring a salad or the drinks. Buy the bread if you must. Spend your time and money on the things you love making and that people will actually remember, and be ruthless about the rest. Smart is not the same as cutting corners.

DO: Make ahead. Then make ahead some more.

The secret to a calm Christmas is that most of it happens before Christmas. Brandy Cream Sauce, Fruity Pear Mince, Iced Cream Cheese Christmas Pud and Trifles can all be done days or sometimes even weeks ahead. Christmas puddings actually get better for the wait.

Cheesecakes, panna cotta, and lots of desserts are happiest made the day before. OR at least the components of say a Pavlova, then only assembled before serving. The less you leave for the day itself, the more of the day you get to enjoy. Bonus: cooking ahead means you shop ahead, before the panic prices and the empty shelves.

And if planning is the bit that makes you want to lie down in a dark room, this is exactly why I built the Menu Builder for my Insider Club members. Pick your showstopper, add your sides, nibbles and dessert from the recipes on tenina.com, and your whole Christmas menu sits in one place instead of across 14 browser tabs and the back of an envelope. You can see at a glance what can be made ahead, what needs doing on the day, and what you're actually shopping for. Fewer impulse buys, fewer forgotten ingredients, fewer 6pm dashes to the shops on Christmas Eve. It's the closest thing to a sous chef I can give you.

DON'T: Spend the whole day in the kitchen

This is the big one. There is nothing sadder than the cook who makes a magnificent lunch and misses every conversation at the table.

Build in extra time. Have a backup dessert in the freezer for when the pav collapses (it happens to the best of us). And let go of perfect. Nobody will remember whether the gravy was homemade or how many sides there were.

They'll remember the laughing, the arguments over the last roast potato, and that they had a ridiculously good time. The cook deserves to be part of that too.

So this Christmas, my advice is simple: cook the things you love, make the rest work harder, and give yourself permission to enjoy it. Eat everything, just not all at once.

Merry Christmas, lovelies.

Tenina xx