Festive fiascos and a Toby Carvery competition!

Christmas is coming which means time with loved ones and the chance to eat, drink and be merry. It's the most wonderful time of the year but it can also be a really stressful time too - from what to cook for Christmas dinner to picking the perfect presents and keeping the peace when spending so much time with people we don't normally see as much.

Apparently, according to a Facebook poll of 500 people by Toby Carvery, almost a quarter of Brits have eaten out on Christmas Day - perhaps in a bid to avoid any festive fiascos or to save on washing up!

The experts in roast dinners asked the public to tell them about the times things haven’t gone quite according to plan, they were inundated with stories, with malfunctioning ovens and greedy pets the most likely causes of Christmas chaos.

Here's what the Toby Carvery survey discovered...

TOP TEN FESTIVE FIASCOS:

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 under-cooking 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

Come on, admit it - how many of these ring true to you? I will own up to more than a few of these...! I have left Yorkshire puddings in the oven until dinner was finished, burnt the stuffing so I had to throw away the pan and underestimated the cooking time needed - but hey, no-one really noticed and there was no real harm done.

To celebrate the festive season, regardless of the highs and potential lows, I have a £20 gift voucher for Toby Carvery to give away. 

...

To be in with a chance of winning, simply enter your details in below via Rafflecopter. You have until midnight on Boxing Day to enter and the winner will be announced shortly thereafter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you'll be at home this Christmas, you might like this series of fun short films created by the team at Toby to help you cope with the most common festive fiascos, should they arise.

The carvery brand has seen a year on year increase in Christmas day bookings and expects this 25th December to be its busiest ever. Rachel Westwood from Toby comments: "This year we are expecting to host over 45,000 guests and are planning to cook over 1500 turkeys, 120,000 roasties and 50,000 Yorkshire puddings. Without restaurant sized kitchens in the home, it is a challenge to juggle the number of dishes most people serve up - a theme that emerged strongly in our poll - and if extended families are getting together this Christmas, the cook will be catering for far more people than they are used to.

"We have definitely seen an increase in demand for larger group bookings for Christmas day (possibly because of the risk of messing up the cooking). Our aim, is to bring loved ones together en-masse, forgetting about who’s in charge of the turkey and who’s washing up. We invite our guests to share their Christmas Day with us and we’ll do all the hard work for you – the more the merrier.”

Good luck with the competition - and with the Christmas Day plans, come what may!

* Thank you to Toby for the competition prize - I have been compensated to share this post.