Christmas is almost here as is Christmas Dinner! It’s a time to gather with friends and family, have fun and eat nice food. But with the good often comes festive fiasco’s!
Toby Carvery recently ran a Facebook poll of 500 people which showed that the nation’s top ten festive fiascos when cooking Christmas dinner. Unsurprisingly oven failure was top, however, pets devouring the food was a surprising second.
The full list of the festive fiasco’s can be found below
1. Oven failure.
2. Pets devouring key dishes on the Christmas dinner menu.
3. Messing up timings and forgetting crucial components – pigs in blankets being the most common accompaniment not to make it on the table.
4. Not turning the oven or setting to the wrong temperature – burning or undercooking dishes
5. Leaving the giblets in the turkey.
6. Having a few too many tipples to cook the meal properly.
7. Having a few too many tipples to eat the meal.
8. Dessert disasters – dry Christmas pud and burned brandy sauce.
9. Unexpected guests turning up and not enough food to go round (or not catering for the unexpected vegetarian
10. Using coffee granules or curry powder instead of gravy granules.
With Christmas dinner nightmares like the ones above, it’s no surprise that almost a quarter of Brits eat out on Christmas Day, with a massive 241% increase between 2011 and 2015. Toby Carvery are expecting around 45,000 guests and are planning to cook over 1500 turkeys, 120,000 roasties and 50,000 Yorkshire puddings! Impressive of what!?
I’ve had my fair share of festive fiasco’s over the years – from forgetting about minor things like roast potatoes to a raw turkey (not my best year), but in more recent years things have been surprisingly stress free. However I still prefer eating out. It reduces my stress levels and means someone else handles the hard work.
If you’re risking the festive fiasco’s and eating at home this year, you should check out the five videos that Toby Carvery have created to help cope with the most common festive fiascos, should they arise.
If you’d like to prevent any festive fiasco’s of your own, you should enter my competition below. You can win yourself a £20 voucher to use at Toby Carvery, it might be a little late for a Christmas lunch but what a great way to start 2017!
To enter, complete the Gleam form below. The first question is compulsory.
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The year I dropped the potatoes, I had to confess to my husband, luckily the floor was clean and we ate them anyway, rotten luck though!!
My festive fiasco from this year was my chocolate log not rolling – it just cracked and collapsed – BUT i managed to disguise it with lashings of chocolate buttercream! Though when people looked at their slice, they could tell it had been a disaster! It was still very tasty though!
I once left the turkey out defrosting and next-doors dog nipped in and nabbed it!
Drove over 100 miles and forgot the presents
forgetting to take the giblets etc out of the turkey and cooking it for 4.5 hours, i did wonder what the dodgy smell was yuck
The worst festive fiasco for me was a few years ago when I spent Christmas with Mom and Dad for the last time. They were both very elderly but Mom would never allow anyone else in the kitchen to help. The food was stone cold and as Mom could not see very well, it was tipped all over the place. Dad, who had very poor eyesight tried pouring the wine but could not see the glass, so he poured it all over the table.
The dessert was to be Viennetta and I can still hear Mom screaming at Dad Viennetta???!!! and him saying, “am I feeling better?”
If it wasn’t so awful it would be funny. Never again.
On Christmas day I had served everything else up and forgot the stuffing in the oven. I only realised as we’d all finished. Thankfully though the oven was off
Forgetting to turn the oven on which was a bit of a disaster
One year, I left the giblets in the turkey.
I caught my naughty husky stood up at the work top chewing the meat straight off the turkey (cooked)! To this day nobody else knows and they enjoyed the meat from the other side
It was completely my fault cos I know how naughty he is, it wasn’t his first meat theft and I’m sure it won’t be his last!
I had 2 this year, first been the pigs in blankets, I prepared the night before and was really pleased with them they took me half an hour and then when we sat down to eat, father in law said you know what we need pigs in blankets and I was like damn, they were still in the fridge, but on the bright side we had them the following morning for a big breakfast! Also me been lazy decided to buy frozen roast potatoes, a cheaper brand than normal and they were like rocks! But everything else went smoothly
I may have had a few glasses of Christmas cheer and defrosted a chicken instead of the Goose. Still, it was still good and the goose was great on Boxing Day.
Having the dog grab the turkey and run off with it.
I forgot to top up the gas and electric (they are both on key meter) and ran out of both on Christmas morning whilst the turkey was cooking!
I made celery stuffing with too much lemon juice. It flavoured the whole meal and we had to throw it wawy
I made celery stuffing with too much lemon juice. It flavoured the whole meal and we had to throw it away.
Cooked stuffing with too much lemon and it flavoured the whole dinner and we had to throw it away
Thankfully there were no disasters this year x
My only fiasco this year was forgetting to pt the pigs in blankets in the oven
Putting the hot tin on the side to baste, not realising there was a plastic chopping board underneath which then melted and stuck to the tin when I returned it to the oven. A few minutes later there was more now plastic all over the oven, and the smell filled the house
I put the timer on to finish cooking the turkey at 2.00 PM instead it started cooking at 2.00AM. We all woke upto lovely cooking smells.
My fiasco was remembering everything but the roast potatoes and having to slow things down whilst I did these.
I forgot the pigs in blankets were in the oven they were quite crispy
Put the turkey on then we all went for a walk up the park, 2 hours later came home and the oven had conked out. Anyone for salad
our Alsatian puppy sneaked into the conservatory and savaged the cockerel which was thawing out for dinner overnight, luckily we had some more, but the poor dog looked so sorry for himself, we couldn’t help but laugh about it!
Got so drunk one Christmas and went to the wrong house for Christmas dinner
bob made bread and butter pudding,dropped it on the kitchen floor,so we all ate it where it landed.it was too good to waste
Leaving the giblets in the plastic bag in the turkey..
Last year I blocked my daughters sink up I was a little drunk and all the food went down the drain
I hid one of my son’s presents that I bought a while ago so well I still haven’t found it.
I put the turkey in the oven, and forgot my mum always goes round and turn the sockets off, so therefore dinner was a tad late, only by 4 hours
Buying the worst wrapping paper ever! Glitter all over house[was so bad even mentioned in a daily newspaper]
We had swede-gate Christmas 2015. My mum had forgotten to buy swede and my sister was adamant that we have it for Christmas dinner. So, late on Christmas Eve, we had to drive around frantically trying to find an open shop that sold swede. We didn’t succeed, unfortunately.
Ours has to be trying to cook goose with no experience at all, he ended up being so so dry everyone had to cover it in gravy and bread sauce to cope. Never again will we be having anything I haven’t already tried to cook before the day lol
My mum once set fire to her eyebrows when lighting the Xmas pud…it might make us mean, but it did make us laugh (once we knew she was okay) as she did look funny
I used vanilla extract instead of gravy browning… luckily I managed to make extra gravy 🙂
Regifting a present to the person who gave it to me in the first place – oops!
Adding salt to the Christmas cookies for work by accident instead of sugar.
My nutroast got pushed to the back of the oven shelf and fell off, it was stuck all down the back wall of the oven
i cooked the turkey put it onthe side to cool cameback to find my two kittens had half eaten it!
Dropping the Turkey that I had got out of the oven to baste on Christmas Eve. The foil tray gave way the turkey hit the deck the body flew one way and they wings the other. The floor which happened to have ceramic tiles was swimming in oil and fat and every time I started to move I started to do the splits. Luckily my husband walked through the door about 5 minutes after it had happened and scooped up the turkey before putting towels down so that I could move from the spot I was rooted to. The mess didn’t half take some cleaning up, I cried at the time but can laugh at it now. I remember thinking at the time thank god we don’t have a dog or the turkey would have been history.
My Mum years ago being nervous, as my boyfriend and a friend of his from abroad were joining us for Christmas Dinner. Then there was a power cut (no electricity). My Mum embarrassed apologised, what else could she do. She can be chatty, spent some time getting to know new guest ( friend of my boyfriend at the time). Hey Presto! Electricity power returned and we got our dinner cooked, delicious ! Plus we had all go friendly with our visitor from Belgium.
Nearly giving everyone food poisoning when the duck wasn’t cooked through
i cannot think of one, i have not had the task of cooking a xmas dinner yet, we usually end up at the mother in laws or someone in my family.
Messing up timings and forgetting crucial components is me EVERY year! It’s either one or the other, it’s got to be a running joke in our house!
Forgetting to turn the oven on!
Forgetting the pigs in blankets so wrapped tge sprout in bacon instead
Forgot to call and collect the turkey
xmas pud was inedible as it was very burnt
18 years old and my first christmas with my now ex and I wanted to make it perfect so i planned to do the full shebang! Bought a frozen turkey which ended up being to serve 14-16 and there was only the 2 of us, it took forever to defrost, i didn’t know about giblets and then when it came to cooking it it filled the oven and i had to try cook everything else like stuffing in the grill
My aunt always made her Christmas puddings and put real silver coins in them. We were always warned to be careful when eating them, but one year my Dad bit in to a coin and broke his tooth!
I hate sprouts. I didn’t have room for all the pans on the stove. I put the sprouts in the utility room. I served everything, the table was groaning it looked great. Then someone moaned about no sprouts. It ruined the
meal. The family just laughed but the guest kept moaning!
Cats having a nibble at the turkey whilst it was standing. It was carved away from the table that year!
Leaving the turkey outside. It was so cold that particular night that the turkey ended up freezing and wasn’t suitable to eat in time!
The year we all forgot to actually turn the oven on…….. we had Christmas lunch at 10pm! 🙂
My partner was really precious about the new red sofa, that nobody should eat or drink on it. Then on Christmas day, he fell asleep on it with a glass of red wine in hand, woke up with a massive jerk and chucked the red wine all over the sofa. I did laugh.
Preparing the xmas turkey very carefully, adding butter precooking and putting bacon on for it to remain moist. Only went and left the giblets in and noticed after we started carving haha. Bit of comedy for Christmas!
When peeling the potatoes my cat decided to paddle his feet in the pot of water they were going in!
Deciding to make a apple and walnut cake instead of a Christmas pudding I didn’t discover until serving it that I’d forgotten to put the walnuts in. Only saved by a generous portion of rum and raisin ice cream
I bought my daughter one of those small bouncy castles , well I got home Christmas eve, blew it up, and bounced on it ( I was worse for wear!)and broke it! I felt very awful!!!!!!
Usually the Christmas cooking is left to my mum, auntie and older cousin but this year I thought I would lend a hand. I was only trusted with washing a lettuce for the side salad with the pate. Who knew there was a certain way to do this and not involving fairy liquid! Safe to say, there was no lettuce being served and I am never being asked for my help in the kitchen again.
THis year the dogs ended up getting ore presents than the humans. They also outnumbered us! 8 dogs, 6 humans.
I was carrying the peas to the table when my sister knocked me and the peas went flying – it took us ages to clear the mess up – and yes some were trodden into the carpet
i was so proud of myself for hosting Christmas dinner for the entire family…prepped all the food the day before, got up early on Christmas morning, only to find the turkey wouldn’t fit in my oven. SO lucky my mum lived close…and had a larger oven
My husband ordered us a vacuum packed turkey joint through his restaurant which didn’t come with instructions and I’m a vegetarian. I cooked it for my family still in the shrink wrapper! Apparently it was nice and moist, if a little anaemic!!
My mum left the giblets in the turkey one year and the smell was awful
Dropping the turkey roaster on the roast potatoes and squashing them all. They was awful and everyones favourite
I haven’t hosted Christmas ever so haven’t had any fiascos!
My Mum hasn’t either, I think the worst thing was she forgot the carrots one year, no one cared!
I don’t seem to be able to claim the final entry method, the link isn’t working for me so won’t let me claim visiting their website
Forgetting to do the sprouts first and resorting to microwave…result – untouched :/ x
I guess I’ve been lucky so far. My closest fiasco was buying a pink feather artificial tree (it seemed like a good idea at the time and the price was right) but it shed worse than any real tree and we had feathers floating around the house for weeks afterwards.
Burning the stuffing and having too make some more (fortunately had brought more than was needed!)
It wasn’t my fiasco but my sister’s. She cooked the turkey with the giblets in the plastic bag
forgot to take the turkey out of the freezer
i once regifted a gift i got for my birthday to the very same person who gave me it orinially – at christmas! awkward trying to dig myself out of that one!
my husband and I thought we would be able to roast a pheasant on our first Christmas together, it was somehow burnt and raw in the middle at the same time!
Knocking my precious Santa ornament of the mantle shelf and breaking it…. not funny at the time but funny now – what are material possessions after all.
Mum burning the mince pies!
Left a pavlova in the cooled oven after cooking it as I was lacking space. Next day forgot, turned on the oven and burn it!
Playing speak out and my dads false teeth popping out = The children thought they were pretend so picked them up and ran away with them haha
It was Christmas Eve and I had defrosted the turkey. There wasn’t enough room in the fridge to keep it overnight so I put it in the garage. Unfortunately it was a very cold night and when we got up on Christmas morning, the turkey had re-frozen.
It wasn’t funny at the time but my daughter woke my up by being sick in my hair on Christmas morning – wasn’t quite the wake up I had planned!
My festive fiascos are never funny – although my partner was amused this year (I was not) as its the 1st time I’ve let him cook dinner in 9 years and the turkey wasn’t pink! He was so proud of himself it was sickening! 😀
forget to buy a turkey
Christmas 1989 – I cooked a very successful Christmas dinner for 10 – serving a goose with all trimmings. Afterwards we all went into the garden and I looked up to see a gaggle of geese soaring in formation overhead. I’m sure the leader looked at me angrily making me feel as though I’d cooked his brother or something. Consequently I’ve been a devout vegetarian ever since. By the way Toby Carvery do a great vegetarian option.
I tried to make a Christmas cake when I was younger but didn’t prepare the tin very well. It fell out in pieces and looked a complete mess!
Chinese takeaway for Christmas dinner instead of turkey
undercooked the potatoes :O
my mums first attempt at roast potatoes (She isn’t much of a cook). She peeled them, wrapped them in tin foil and popped them in the oven. So far from roasts it’s unreal.
Our oven stopped working half way through cooking the turkey! Had to use next doors oven!!
I bought beautiful blue lights very cheaply from China to go around my house but only two of them worked . Don’t understand it as most of the lights bought in the UK are made in China anyway. Major flop.
Treated myself to a goose, cost a fortune, had to cut it in half to get it in the oven – then went to the pub with the lads and forgot about it, burned to a crisp.
We had crackers with nothing inside. We all pulled our crackers and we’re disappointed to find they were empty. On further investigation of the empty box I discovered pieces of gold and silver paper with a4 sheets of paper with origami instructions – kept everyone occupied while a prepared pudding but I’ve never had crackers with the inside on the outside before,
the turkey sliding across the kitchen, covering the floor in grease then I slipped over in puddle of it, I haven’t done turkey again!
Once year I forgot to do the veg!
Burning something in a pan and then putting flames out in sink, resulting in a melted plastic water pipe (through heating up of stainless steel sink) which resulted in a flood. Fire and flood in one fell swoop!
Undercooked goose :'(
A friend of mine roasted a brace of pheasants and left the giblets inside.
My funniest actually happened this year at a works christmas party… Our manager thanked us all for coming and then told us later on there would be a big surprise at the party, anyways the night when on and it came for the ‘big surprise’
She took out some cowboy boots from her bag and proceeded to do a solo line dance for us all.
Not quite the big surprise everyone was hoping for lol!
We went for Christmas dinner at the neighbours and they dropped the dish of roast potatoes on the floor, They picked them up covered in dog hair and served them anyway. Needless to say we didn’t eat them!
forgetting half the pressies from the big man on xmas eve
Forgot to turn the oven on
I think I’ve been pretty fortunate compared to some peoples fiascos! The worst we’ve managed is forgetting to serve the peas and finding them in the microwave the following day
Forgot to buy a pudding, Boo hoo!
When carrying the turkey on it’s silver tray to the table, I somehow managed to let it slide off! Luckily it landed on the table, and my sons though it was hilarious! It’s nice to see a local blogger by the way, I live in Chester-le-Street!
Oven switched itself off so dinner late at least we did notice eventually
Didnt really have one. But a xmas funny. I was singing Last Christmas to my 5 year old and when i said next year ill give it to someone special and he was like are you really mummy? who you going to give it too lol
Managed to burn swede 3 years in a row – never done it at any other time of year, just Christmas!
I’ve managed to burn swede 3 years in a row. No problems at any other time of year – just Christmas
I wrapped up the wrong presents giving my 16 year old son a Barbie and my 5 year old daughter a Eminem cd . My 16yr old son said i think santa has had to many naughty drinks as my daughter sat there crying as she wanted the barbie. From that day ive made sure all wrapping gets done before christmas drinks x
forgetting to actually defrost the bird :/
My festive fiasco was definitely this year when our oven broke on Boxing Day (possibly due to over five hours of cooking the turkey the day before!) and so we had to finish off cooking our dinner in our lovely neighbour’s oven! Thank goodness it didn’t happen on the big day itself!
Tried to cook our turkey on our gaz bbq in the garden, as we had an electric cut – the whole street was having a mass panic attack – except that wise old bird, Mrs Williams, who had cooked her turkey the day before!!
I dropped the turkey as I was taking it out of the oven and the cat sunk it’s teeth into it before I could do anything
grandmas cooking crusty bread rolls to go with the soup starter, she forgot about them and they came out hard as bricks lol
My husband cooked a pork joint and not the turkey, apparently they look quite similar lol. I wouldn’t mind, but it’s the only thing I asked him to do 😀 The children were not impressed at all! So we had turkey on boxing day 🙂
The dog trying to open the presents
Thinking I’d turned the oven down resulting an extremely dry crispy turkey
All of the gift tags fell of the family gifts when we put them in black bags to take them over to my grandmas. We had no clue who’s was who’s. I just guessed, made them open a tiny bit and then passed it on to the correct person. They all thought it was hilarious xx
We always laugh at my mum, she cooks things then forgets to get them out of the oven, before we’ve had missing parsnips, yorkshires, veg left in the steamer, one year she forgot to put the crackers out, the list goes on lol
I microwaved the christmas pudding still in its plastic container and nearly gave my nana smoke inhalation.
I had gone to stay with my parents over Christmas. On Christmas Eve, to give them a break, I started to prepare the Christmas Lunch, whilst they went to Midnight Mass!! The veggies were peeled, the turkey ready for stuffing!! brrr brrr.. the phone rang, I ran to answer it… It was my aunt , who was moaning on for what seemed liked hours, bout my uncle, having one to many, and, falling asleep … Next thing I knew, mum, and, dad walked through the back door, to be greeted by their dog , Oscar, a Malamute, galloping around the living room, looking like Mr Bean, with the turkey stuck on his head!! OMG!!! I tried to rescue the turkey, but, to say it was hairy was an understatement!!
Not putting the oven on early enough, so ended up having Christmas dinner after 4pm, everyone was starving by then.
Few years ago my sister was getting turkey out of oven & she dropped the tray.. luckily the turkey stayed in the tray but the hot fat went all over her feet( she was only wearing slippers she just got as a present)her hubby took her to local hospital where they dressed the feet in lose dressing
We did eat Christmas dinner later that day & it was nice
We still say my sister only did it to get out of the washing up!!!
* her feet did heel and all as well now*
A turkey roll left in the oven over a week, but the light had done and i kept saying there’s a smell everytime i use the cooker it had been pushed down the back of the shelf and was a black lump!!
ruining the pudding
I once forgot to buy the turkey, only realising too late christmas eve, the veg was lovely though
I forgot the stuffing to go with the roast turkey dinner on Christmas day!
my husband ordered a large turkey for a big family meal one christmas and mistakingly ordered a 5lb bird instead of 5kg, we had a lot of stuffing/vegetables that year!
Having my main oven decide to stop working on Christmas day 2014 had to double cooking time and use tiny top oven. All`s well that ended well
we once had to have microwaved soup on Christmas day as we thought the oven was broken. When it was repaired after Christmas the electrician pointed out that it was only one of the hob rings that was broken and that the oven would have worked after all – but we sadly had to go without turkey that year!
I remembered all the turkey ,trimmings like stuffing piggies in blankets goose fat for the roasties and completely forgot to pick the veg order up had frozen peas and potato wedges with the turkey as it was the only veg in the freezer
Would have to be when i wrote happy birthday in my mum and dads christmas card! Was so embarrassing.
Probably when I put the turkey in a cool box in the garden cos I had no room in the fridge and when I went to get it xmas morning it’d gone lmao I wasn’t laughing at the time
When my grandma gave me a Disney hoopla game. Where you throw the rubber rings on their nose. I was 21
dropping the meat on the kitchen floor when I took it out of the oven
Leaving the Gut bag in the Turkey and cooked for 5 hours..
Every year wrapping !!! This piece is big enough … oh no it isn’t.. i’ll cut more.. there isnt enough left! Ok new roll… scissors make the edge jagged, its ok I’ll fold that bit over.. now its too small.. I’ll cut a new piece, now theres too much.. I’ll cut it down.. I cut too much now its too small …. well… I’ll just stick the trimmings over the gap! XD
Thinking I had done all the present shopping… until I realised it was the 23rd and I hadn’t!
The dog getting excited over the cooking turkey smells and biting mum.
Its certainly not funny but definitely a fiasco! In 1963, way before I was born, my fathers’ Uncle Eddie died on Boxing day by by choking on a pickled onion at the dinner table!
Forgot the pigs in blankets so wrapped bacon around the sprouts hoping for the best! Everyone hated them
My oven broke this year on Christmas day! I had to do everything in the microwave!
A couple of years ago I had my neice and nephew round with my brother for Christmas breakfast, i already had the turkey in the oven and one of them must have turned it off cause I noticed about midday that the turkey just wasnt cooking as fast as I’d have liked, I know it had defintely been on cause it had started cooking
I pulled a cracker too enthusiastically and fell off my chair! Still didn’t win!
we where playing pie face showdown and my youngest son started crying because he didn’t get pied.
Cooker conked so bought a new one on Christmas Eve. Salesman insisted it only needed a plug fitting.Late evening we discovered it had to be wired into the mains on its own ring circuit
Turning the oven on and forgetting the cooked Pavlova was inside which I made the night before. I had to remake it again as it was burnt