Last year was our first year hosting Christmas. We had the inlaws on Christmas Eve and my family on Christmas Day - I do *not* recommend hosting two Christmases, it sucked. We wanted it all one day, but the inlaws wouldn't do Christmas Day.

Anyway, we kept it pretty simple. The day before Christmas Eve I cooked three roasts, using the oven & weber, and did a glazed ham. The recipes all came from last year's Christmas editions of Better Homes & Gardens, and I still have them so can post the recipes if you like. On each morning I made the salads - there was a seafood salad from the magazines, and some general type salads. They didn't take long, then DH carved up half of each roast/ham on the day. I also made a Pavlova base the day before Christmas Eve and decorated it that day for desert, and on Christmas Day we had a Christmas icecream pudding I'd made in advance. I also made red cherry ripe balls and green mint balls (recipe from here on BB).

Everyone arrived quite early, so I already had the table set - just a plastic Christmas tablecloth, plain white plates etc & silver cutlery, and for decorations I went with red and gold. We had a gold glittery wire tree in the centre of the table, and red and gold bon bons. Various red and gold decorations were around the house. I got DD to go to town with red and green paint on some paper, and cut out circles in four different sizes. Then I taped them to green string in a pattern and stuck the strings to the wall behind the table (does that even make sense??).

When people arrived we had snacks out, started lunch about 12, and opened presents after. DD was pretty overwhelmed by it all because our families suck at letting her nap lol, so there around certainly things that could have gone better and it was a lot of work doing it all twice, but at least we didn't spend three days on the road like a normal Christmas.