Around about this time every year, I never cease to be amazed at the amount of stress and anxiety some people put themselves through for the sake of a so called ‘perfect’ Christmas dinner.

And for some, it starts long before Christmas Day.

Standing behind an irate couple who were queuing at the checkout in Iceland, I couldn’t help but feel the tension oozing from the pair.

“If we don’t get served soon Donald the turkey will start to defrost.”

“Don’t be so bloody daft Isobel,” he retorted.

“The bloody bird is the size of an Ostrich!”

My shoulders were shoogling with laughter.

“It’s and 11lb turkey,” Donald shook his head.

“It’ll take at least a week to defrost.”

Isobel seemed to be getting her knickers in a twist because her ginormous turkey was now out of the freezer, which was why she expressed her fears to her husband that she thought it might defrost leading to all sorts of contamination.

“And a touch of food poisoning wouldn’t go a miss with your family anyway,” nipped Donald.

“That way I’ll at least get New Year to myself.”

I couldn’t help but imagine the atmosphere in their household on Christmas Day.

After Iceland I headed to Asda and noticed that the family in front of me at the checkout had a giant trolley which was stuffed to the gunnels with all sorts of groceries.

“We’ve only got four loaves Barry,” the wife pointed out.

“Do you think we should get another one?”

And before Barry could answer.

“Maybe we should have bought more party food in case your Anne and Bill nip in?”

The wife was still rattling on as she disappeared up an isle for yet more essentials.

“I’ll just nip back and get another two bottles of wine as I don’t think six will be enough.”

Meanwhile, poor Barry looked as though he had lost the will to live as he turned to me.

“The best of it is hen," he pointed out.

“The big supermarkets are only shut for one day.”

Again I found myself nodding.

“And the corner shops and takeaways are open anyway, so we’ll no starve.”

I smiled as the wife returned looking as though her arms were about to snap with the weight of the ‘essential’ groceries.

My shopping basket looked rather measly next to the giant trolleys stacked high however, I arrived home, unpacked my meagre shopping and headed out to meet my friends.

“Honestly girls, surely there’s only so much a person can eat in one day.”

“I agree,” added Mae.

“And apart from the nightmare food shopping, cooking the actual dinner can be very traumatic.”

Everyone in the group nodded in agreement because deep in our brains we each had a memory of some sort of cooking disaster, when Fiona added.

“Most people barely cook from one year to the next and are suddenly expected to produce a banquet for 20 people.”

“You’re right,” added Sandra.

“My Dave brought home a frozen chicken instead of a turkey and said ‘a bird is a bird and what difference did it make.”

“He also said that because I’d never cooked a turkey before, he thought it best that I stuck to chicken as I’d cooked chicken many times over the years.”

“I completely misjudged the cooking time of my turkey,” Mae confessed.

“Twelve pairs of hungry eyes were glowering at me praying that their Christmas main course was finally about to be served.”

And we all knew how that felt.

“The turkey was far from ready, so I decided to serve up all the trimmings, which were devoured in a flash, and a couple of hours later I served up the turkey with some gravy.”

No one answered Mae as she added.

“It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing.”

“A few years back our oven packed in mid-way through cooking and the house was full of hungry folk who were getting more than a little tipsy drinking on empty stomachs,” Angela explained.

“That must have been a disaster,” I reckoned.

“Well it could well have been, but my husband had a brilliant idea.”

All ears perked up curious as to how Angela’s husband had saved the day.

“He fired up the barbecue, chopped up the turkey and cooked it on that.”

Angela’s potential Christmas dinner disaster was averted, but Susan’s wasn’t.

“I spent hours, and I mean hours, setting up and decorating my table with fancy napkins, beautiful candles, small gifts, expensive gold coloured Christmas crackers, tinsel and sparkly stars.”

“It looked absolutely amazing until…….…”

“My Aunt Jean’s chair collapsed, she tried to save herself and pulled on the table cloth, and every single item shot up in the air!”

I do hope you all have a disasters free and happy Christmas.

Janice x