With Christmas just around the corner, your lovely editors-in-chief are coming to the rescue with some useful tips and tricks to get you through the holidays. How to make sure you can keep eating for three days straight? What do you when you are hosting family at YOUR place? What do you do when your persistent and rude uncle tries to lure you into heated political discussions? Siblings that drive you mad? The best anti-hangover tips? We have got the answers for you!!
1. Hosting a Christmas breakfast/lunch/dinner
Let’s say you have offered to host a Christmas gathering at your place for your family or friends. Super fun, but perhaps daunting or stressful, too. Here are some tips to make your life easier:
For cooking, keep it simple. We cannot stress this enough. Soups, quiches, dips, easy-to-prep salads (prep-able dishes are key!!). Avoid having difficult roasts or 45-step dishes.
Agree upon clear start- and end time. Christmas is socially draining enough ;-).
Ask guests to bring something, take care of a course. This way you avoid being in the kitchen all the time!
2. Staying off the hangover-train
Christmas is a time to be jolly, and naturally, this involves alcohol (most of the time). If you don’t drink, this does not apply to you (and well done). If you do, keep reading:
First tip, sounds cliché, but don’t overdo it for three days in a row. Also, combing alcoholic beverages with water is a massive help!!
This might sounds counter-intuitive, but get your body moving the day after!! Nourish your body with a good breakfast and coffee, and go for a walk or run. Thank us later!
In a hungover state, it usually works to just have a first drink the next day, during your next dinner. A glass of prosecco a day, keeps the hangover headache away (but again, do not overdo it. Alcohol is bad, mmkay?)
3. Political discussions and family
This might be the biggest challenge, in our opinion. How to get away (or regulate) political discussions at the Christmas table. You might find yourself at a dinner party with your very opinionated uncle, who, because he knows you are in academia, thinks you enjoy debating 24/7 (little does he know). A few tips to handle this:
Find ways to exclude yourself from the discussion. For example, if you have a sibling that equally detests the tone of discussions, agree upon a ‘code word’ that will take you out of the situation, such as: ‘do you want some more water?’. Then go and get water together.
This one is hard, but try to NOT engage in the discussion. Nod and do not interact. This will drive them mad :).
4. Keep-on-eatin’
Finally, some great tips to be able to indulge in all that what Christmas food has to offer, but to not overindulge, so as by the time you reach dinner nr. 3, you cannot anymore. This is by no means a plea to diet or eat as little as possible. We fiercely think Christmas is a time to enjoy, and not think about calories <3. Therefore, keep-on-eatin’ is a credo we live by during the holidays.
Try to taste smaller bits of everything, rather than loading up your dish of that one specific, amazing truffle-potato-gratin.
The heavier produces will get you FULL! Think of potato’s, bread, pasta’s, rice. You know the deal.
If you are in charge of cooking, experiment with vegetables and mainly vegetarian dishes. Meat will fill you up!
We sincerely hope you have a wonderful time with your friends and family <3. See you in the new year!
Love, your editors, Špela and Emily.