AS HAPPENS EVERY year around this time, the world has just about reached peak Christmas panic.
Every shop is shouting about being open ’til midnight, wrapping paper has suddenly skyrocketed in price, and you somehow find yourself agreeing with the butcher that a full-sized turkey is perfect for your dinner needs, despite the fact you’re only cooking for four.
Yes, it may all feel a little untethered right now, but there are plenty of small things you can do to ensure the remaining days before December 25th go smoothly.
Preparing for the unexpected will make your job – and Santa’s, if he’s headed to your house – a lot easier, so here’s how to go about it…
At Christmas, social etiquette rules go out the window, and it suddenly becomes acceptable for your second cousin and his kids to drop in with no warning because they were ‘in the neighbourhood – sure we’re just coming back from Mass!’
To avoid being left red-faced when Cousin Mark or Sheila From Two Doors Down call in with a tin of biscuits, ensure you have a supply of last-minute presents of your own to hand. Selection boxes, candles and bottles of wine all work a treat for emergency callers.
Nothing quite compares to the heart-stopping shock of realising you’ve neglected to purchase batteries for your child’s long-awaited new toy, especially if it’s Christmas morning and every shop is shut for the day.
With that in mind, it’s worth picking up a few multipacks (AA and AAA in particular) now, to have squirreled away for Christmas emergencies. Yes, even if all the boxes say that batteries ARE included. Santa’s diligent battery-packing elves have been known to miss a few.
Christmas generally means a lot of car time, with trips to relatives, supermarket hauls and midnight Mass outings. It’s also one of the coldest periods of the year, and one of the hardest times to track down a mechanic.
If you have any longer trips planned over the Christmas period, run a brief maintenance check-up on your car this week to ensure your battery, brakes, tyres, lights, heating systems and exhaust are all in working order and ready for icy or snowy conditions.
Every kitchen is home to one item that makes prepping food in advance a breeze: a freezer. Make gravy, stuffing, soups, cranberry sauce and bread sauce whenever you want, freeze them, and defrost them on the day.
Veggie sides like roast potatoes, root vegetables and sprouts can all be parboiled and refrigerated the day before, and cold desserts like mousse or cheesecake will keep well when chilled or frozen too.
Running to the supermarket for a few ‘last-minute bits’ might seem like a great idea until you’re left loading loading four litres of soft drinks and three tubs of ice-cream into the car in the lashing rain, while trying to persuade an overexcited three-year-old not to run off into the car park again.
Save yourself the stress this year and consider purchasing at least some of your groceries online, either using a delivery or a collect-in-store service. You’ll avoid panicked last-minute purchases and win back time.
If you have a mountain of presents to wrap this year, chances are you did last year too, which means there’s no doubt some spare festive paper lying around the house.
Have a root around for leftover wrapping rolls, gift boxes, ribbon, tags, cards and gift bags now. If it saves you dropping €8.50 on a roll of ‘deluxe embossed paper’ because there’s nothing else left in the supermarket, it’ll all be worth it.
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