Avoiding Stress While Cooking For The Holidays

Serving a perfectly cooked meal to an entire table filled with your closest family members and friends can be overwhelming and stressful. We've brought you simple Christmas dinner slow-cooker recipes and foods to eat to minimize stress, but now we have great tips to keep you cool as a cucumber come Christmas dinner. Eliminate that holiday anxiety this year by carefully planning and taking these easy tips into consideration. Sit back and think of the holidays as a time to relax, instead of a time to fret over.

Ask for Help

It can be tough when you've been the orchestrator of Christmas dinner without help for years, but sometimes you just need to ask for a helping hand. You could request that everyone brings a dessert, so you can skip out on making all of the pies and cakes yourself, or you could ask for someone to help you clear the table and do the dishes, so you're not spending the entire remainder of the evening cleaning. Most guests don't mind helping out; all you need to do is ask!

Empty Out the Fridge and Freezer Now

Having a fridge and freezer full of food will be super stressful come Christmas day when you have no room in the fridge for your leftovers. Also, take into account the fact that relatives might show up with an extra dessert or dish that you need to somehow work into the fridge before that dish is served. Do yourself a favor and clean the refrigerator out now, so you have plenty of space come Christmas Day.

Make Everything You Can in Advance

Most of the food for Christmas dinner can be prepared a day or two ahead of time, so use that time to start prepping your dishes. Freeze some of your baked breads and sauces and thaw them on Christmas Day. You don't want to get stuck in Christmas chaos with tons of food to prepare, gift wrap to clean up, and family that you want to spend time with.