Christmas Day with the Sahrawats

We start Christmas Day like any other family, with the kids’ opening presents, a special breakfast, crêpes with seasonal berries gets us ready for the day.

Our Christmas tradition is to host an “orphan’s Christmas”, we close our restaurants on Christmas Day and Boxing Day and our staff, extended family and friends who have no other plans for the day show up at ours around lunch time.

Feasting continues all day, and we usually stop by the kid’s bedtime, this year we definitely will have an earlier night as we fly off to Sydney and Melbourne for 10 days on Boxing Day for a little getaway.

Every year there is a different menu, a mix of meats grilled on the BBQ, usually whole roasted duck as we prefer it to Turkey, lots of salads that make the most of corn, avocados and tomatoes that are in season. One year we did Indian street food for Christmas because why not?

This year we want to try something a bit different, our daughter Zoya loves pork belly, so I am going to add this pork belly with parsnip, witloof and pear dish to our Christmas lunch menu and then for dessert, instead of the usual trifle or pavlova we are going to make a chocolate self-saucing pudding that is easy for sharing.

My tips for a stress-free Christmas are to be prepared, just like with restaurant service, having as much of your prep done in advance can really make life easy. Plan a menu that has lots of elements that can be made 1-2 days ahead of time, cold dishes that can be prepped before the meal like ceviche and caprese or panzanella are great.

Many people plan the food menu and forget the drinks. Chill white wine, make a fruit punch for the kids, get ice for the ice bucket.

I even get our wine glasses polished and ready the night before so then all I need to do is get my wine bottles from the wine fridge before guests arrive. If you are not a bartender at heart, outsource with a cocktail kit or pre-batched cocktails.

Delegate little jobs to kids like setting the table, decorating, making the seating plan, it keeps them involved and out of the way.

Christmas entertaining doesn’t need to be stressful; the most important element is to have fun with the people you love… so don’t stress if you forget something or burn something nobody will remember next year.