Christmas and New Year are great fun; it is something that many of us look forward to each year as we get to spend some quality time with friends and family. If there is one true fact about this time of year it is that we all eat a lot of food! Christmas dinner is something special with days if not weeks of preparation that includes finding the right sized turkey that will feed everyone and getting all the necessary trimmings to go with it.

The fact that the majority of us will eat early afternoon means that all the preparation needs to be carried out the night before. We wake up on Christmas morning looking forward to the day ahead and there is one thing you can guarantee in many households, that there will be plenty of food around. If your house is like many others, you will have people coming in to wish you a merry Christmas throughout the day so you need to have plenty of snacks and drinks available.

Christmas can be stressful as well as great fun, especially if you are the one doing all the cooking. It is a good idea to start shopping early, if you start preparing for Christmas soon you will not have to rush around closer to the day. Anyone who has needed a vital ingredient at the last minute will know how difficult is can be and how long you might have to queue for it. You obviously can not buy the turkey (or whatever meat you are having) quite yet but there are many butchers who will allow you to pre-order so you can pick it up closer to Christmas.

It is a good idea to have a clear out of your cupboards to make room for all the tasty food you are about to fill them with. You want to make sure you have plenty of room in your cupboards so have a good search through them and either get rid of anything you are unlikely to use or use some imagination to create some tasty dishes with them.

If you are somebody is forgetful or tends to be overburdened at Christmas time then it is probably a good idea to make a to-do list and simply tick things off when you have finished them. That way you will not (or at least less likely to) forget anything. Christmas is only 42 days away and counting, think how fast the rest of the year has gone, there will be sleigh bells in the snow before you know it.