Houseplants and gingerbread: How to absolutely nail your Christmas experience at uni

Term finishes this week and that means you’ll hopefully be able to go home and relax a bit over Christmas,. This means your beloved housemates, who you have spent all day every day with for the last three months, will be spread across the country unable to celebrate together on the big day. Not to worry, it means that you can have two Christmas days instead of one.

The festive season can be a stressful time and, when everyone has different ideas, it can be difficult to have an enjoyable time whilst also stressing about the food. But not to worry – we’ve put together a quick guide on how to have the perfect house Christmas dinner before you go home:

Preparation and Decoration

Grab a stack of A4 paper and take a trip back to primary school to make some snowflakes to decorate your front room with. Buy some cheap fairy lights to add to the decor or even recruit one of your larger houseplants as a tree to fill the space.

a beautiful tree

Shopping

Take a trip to your supermarket of choice and browse their yummy selection of Christmas meats and other treats. Don’t do the shopping too early unless you have a huge fridge. Essentials include: your main protein (chicken, turkey etc), potatoes for roasting, a pack of stuffing mix, veggies (including brussels of course) and, most importantly, pigs in blankets.

If you’re vegetarian or vegan, like many in Brighton are, there are plenty of great alternatives around – don’t get stuck with just a plate of veg.

Cooking

If you want to eat at seven, start prepping at around four to make sure everything is ready in time: trust us when we say it takes a lot more time and work than you think. At least it justifies being drunk by the time the dinner is ready.

The general order is meat, potatoes, pigs in blankets, stuffing, veggies then, last but not least, the Yorkshire puddings. They’re easy to forget but no roast dinner is complete without them.

Perhaps prepare a classy wine and cheese board for while you’re waiting, or for after you’ve eaten.

Entertainment

Whilst everything is in the oven, you can grab a gingerbread house kit and test your engineering skills and put it up together. As an added bonus, you get to eat it afterwards. While decorating, make sure to put on a great Christmas playlist in the background to get the full Christmas vibe – no festive party is complete without a bit of Mariah or Buble.

If you’ve already left your uni house for the holidays, this plan can easily be adapted to do over Zoom – it’s bound to be more fun than yet another quiz.

Merry Christmas to all!