One of the things I look forward to during the holidays is that holiday meal.
You know, the one with turkey and stuffing and potatoes and squash and cranberries and gravy. Yum, just thinking about it makes me hungry.
In the past, we’ve cooked the big turkey dinner but it always seems like so much work and very stressful, this coming from a non-cook.
To avoid spending most of Christmas Day in the kitchen we’ve tried cooking our big dinner Christmas Eve but we are always just as busy.
We’ve also tried making something else, like ham or steak, but you still need all the extras and somehow Christmas dinner without turkey isn’t Christmas dinner in my mind.
What To Know About Catering Christmas Dinner
For something different this year (and for the past three years) we have had Christmas dinner catered.
Now before you jump to conclusions, I’m not talking personal chef in my kitchen preparing things that a wait staff serves us on fine china; not that kind of catering!
I’m talking about someone else preparing all the dishes and then all I have to do is just reheat and serve.
As it turns out, I’m not the only one looking for an easier Christmas dinner. There are a few places in the city that will prepare your holiday meal so you don’t have to.
Our favorite, Summerhill Market, is a fine food grocery store and catering company. From their website, I ordered a full Christmas dinner that included sliced-free range Turkey (white and dark meat), apple sage dressing, turkey gravy, orange cranberry sauce, buttermilk mashed potatoes, maple roasted butternut squash and fresh green beans.
I can order as little as 48 hours before I want my meal and I can pick it up Christmas Eve, which is exactly what we will do. We usually order a few extra place servings for the leftovers.
The Summerhill Market is so organized, having us in and out to pick-up our order before the holiday crowd arrives. Everything is prepared and pre-packed in oven-ready containers and it comes all stored neatly in a box, making it easy to transport home.
So come Christmas morning, instead of running around getting turkey and fixings ready, we enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with our kids.
I don’t think about dinner until about an hour before we want to eat.
Then all I had to do is pop the various items into the oven, following the preparation instructions on each container: oven temperature and time required for re-heating. The only cooking item I have to pull out is a pot to reheat the gravy, leaving my kitchen tidy too.
Within about an hour and a half, we were ready to sit down to our full meal.
After dinner clean up is a breeze enabling us to move on to more important things like pumpkin pie and a family board game.
I may have taken the easy way out, but I think my family appreciates having more time hanging out together then having me hovering in the kitchen getting dinner ready. And since Summerhill Market makes their food fresh, it’s not as if I am skimping on a healthy meal.
Catering Christmas dinner has easily become another family tradition — one that I fully endorse.