Great Expectations (aka Christmas)

It's the most wonderful time of the year...or is it?

You're hosting the family or friendmas Christmas lunch, (undoubtedly the most hyped meal of the year) and expectations are running hot & high for what everyone can expect. Will there be a whole turkey as the table centrepiece (we don't recommend, needs a pre-cook brine), should you sit your uncle next to great aunt gladys (that's a hard no) & is a turducken a fabulous way to feed a crowd (jury is out on that one). Add in different dietary needs (there's always at least ONE), the logistics of oven space & cooking times for a multitude of dishes that all need to be served at once. Then there's the cost of feeding a crowd of expectant, hungry humans who wouldn't normally pile a plate high with three types of meat plus seafood, salads & crunchy spuds (don't forget the gravy) but it "is Christmas".

Before your twitchy thumbs take on a grinch-like life of their own and cancel Christmas in the group chat (purely from the panic that sentence above has inspired), can you slowly put down the phone, back away & ponder one of our top tips for a fabulous festive feasting experience that hits all the great expectation notes with none of the lows.

Delegate, delegate, delegate.

No this isn't a corporate productivity hack, it's what we actually did last year for our family Christmas and it was a MAGNIFICENT IDEA. The host (our beloved snout/General Manager Katherine) sat down and chose the menu from our scrumptious lineup then drafted up a group text giving everyone coming one dish from the menu to buy, get delivered to their home & bring cooked/prepared/ready to warm & serve on the day.

The result?

• The cost of the day was spread out with everyone contributing - we also got some people to buy drinks from our immaculate sWine Cellar options as their contribution.
• The prep of the day was shared with luscious platters piled high with salads & seafood arriving ready to serve, meats came cooked and wrapped in foil & a towel so just a quick slice and serve was the only effort required & a decadent gravy was bubbling on the stove in anticipation. Oven time was minimal, everyone brought the food either warm or chilled in their own cooler bags so fridge space wasn't at capacity & it was a FEAST.
• Stress levels for the snout (our generous host) were dramatically reduced & the morning was spent setting the table, putting the finishing touches to THAT gravy & ensuring the house was sufficiently proofed & ready for an influx of small people who wouldn't have napped/would be fuelled by ice-cream cake and stolen tiramisu.
• Dietary needs were covered with anyone who didn't eat something specific delegated a dish that suited so they knew there was something scrumptious on the menu to suit.

Will we be repeating it? 

You bet your bottom piggy pink dollar we will! This year's "KerrChristmas" is somewhat a smaller affair with family flung near and wide (we promise we didn't fling them there after last year's lunch, it's just how the chips have fallen) but we're still planning to delegate the menu to make it a day that everyone can look forward to & enjoy. 

The Christmas plan/food/vibes is looking a lot like...

Early morning swims, beach picnic brekkies/brunch, off to mum's for a lazy lunch by the pool with perhaps a small couch snooze tucked into the afternoon, snackie dinner with leftovers and an early night ready for a big Boxing day of cricket, leftover ham, pondering the present stash & some gentle social media time to enjoy the tags and comments coming in from this year's Christmas deliveries followed by a switch off for the one week of the year we are actually closed. Whilst the actual Christmas day food plans are much smaller than last year, we often buy from the menu with that lazy week off in mind to have a fridge full of delicious, easy & fabulous options for grazing, having friends or family over or just enjoying a meal that we created months ago and have put so much time & effort into behind the scenes and then we get the customer experience!

What are you ordering from this year's menu?

For Christmas Day (& perhaps an extra for the following week/s), it has to be a honey & cider glazed ham with fresh peach relish. SO good warm, thinly sliced & piled high with that luscious peach relish, a healthy dollop of the potato salad & some garlic prawns with avo, fresh dill & our gorj green dressing. Early family dinner? The salmon tarator with herbed crust & honey tahini yoghurt is def making an appearance, alongside the cranberry & orange glazed turkey roll (with reallly good gravy), the vegetarian herb, fetta & sundried tomato filo pie, the brunch box & the sides pack with the ruffled leaf salad & the crispy roasted spuds with the sour cream & fetta dipping sauce.

Boxing Day? The Tuscan style porchetta with pecorino & rosemary is getting cooked on the BBQ for an easy win & being served in front of the cricket piled into fresh bread rolls & a drizzle of leftover Christmas gravy. Dessert is the cheese board plopped on the coffee table for some afternoon grazing with a glass of something crisp and cold from The sWine Cellar. The rest of that magical week between Christmas and New Year will be sponsored by the produce box & fruit bag, stopping any need for the shops, the delicious Greek style chicken for one easy nights dinner & the brunch box sorting late mornings by the pool.

That's our Christmas in the bag, if you need some ideas on what dishes would work for your festive event & what you could delegate for your guests to bring, have a look at our blog here on the dishes on this year's menu & what we would recommend or reach out to our pig of the people Chris (aka The Ginger Pig) for his top festive picks.

Or if you're inspired by our order & want to experience your own version of KerrChristmas, you can see the full Christmas menu lineup here. Annnd if you adore a stroll down memory lane check out the hashtag #10yearsoftlpwtm posts we did last year on instagram celebrating all things Little Pig over the years, including some epic Christmas memes.

Don't forget that every Christmas order goes automatically in the draw to win the rather spectacular KitchenAid Evergreen stand mixer (valued at $1199) - drawn on December 13th after our orders close.