Christmas planning: To Do Lists

Month by month Christmas 2026 planning guide

Your Christmas planning checklist

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Christmas Day planning: running the day itself

Everything above is about the run-up. Christmas Day planning is a different job — less shopping list, more running order — and it is worth ten minutes on Christmas Eve to think through, because it is the one day nobody can push back if it goes wrong.

Most UK households settle into some version of this shape. Treat it as a framework to adjust, not a schedule to follow to the minute:

Morning — stockings, then a slow start. Let the stockings happen at whatever hour the household demands, then hold breakfast light. A big cooked breakfast the same day as a big lunch is a kindness to nobody.

Late morning — presents, and the cooking begins in the background. Open presents as one event rather than a trickle if you can manage it — it is easier to enjoy and easier to photograph. Whoever is cooking will want the kitchen from around this point; our guide to roasting the turkey has the timings, and they matter rather more than anything else on this list.

Early afternoon — lunch. Sit down when the food is ready rather than at a fixed time; a resting bird is more forgiving of a late table than a boiling pan of vegetables is. Crackers before the first course, not after, or nobody will remember to pull them.

Afternoon — the walk, and the speech. A walk, however short, earns its place on every version of this day — it airs the house, tires the children, and makes room for tea. Plenty of households build the afternoon loosely around the King’s Christmas Message, whenever it is broadcast that year.

Evening — cold cuts, board games, television nobody has to concentrate on. The best Boxing Day preparation you can do on Christmas Day itself is deciding tonight, while everyone is still cheerful, who is doing what tomorrow.

None of this needs to be elaborate to work. One really good dish and a decent box of crackers do most of the work that a five-course lunch is often trying, and failing, to do — and it leaves whoever cooked with an afternoon to actually sit down.