One in ten of us will have five festive feeds this Christmas!

Figures from M&B show the number of festive meals sold in the first two weeks of December has ballooned from around 90,000 in 2011 to a stunning 260,000 plus last year.

Pubs and restaurants including Toby Carvery, Harvester restaurants and Sizzling Pubs have revealed that the number of bookings made throughout December to have nearly tripled in recent years.

In a survey 65% of consumers said that they would be having more than two Christmas dinners throughout December, with 7% revealing they’d be enjoying five or more festive feasts!

82% of people are expecting to celebrate with family and 64% of us are looking forward to this feast the most.

Celebrating with friends (30%) with the office party (20%) were also high on the list and interestingly, just over 10% of us actually look forward to work parties the least.

75% of us will travel under five miles as we are mostly keen to celebrate closer to home.

People living in the East Midlands travel the furthest for their Christmas dinner with nearly 20% of people travelling more than 21 miles. Incredibly, over 10% of people living in Wales & the South West will travel more than 50 miles.

Catriona Kempston, Marketing Director at Mitchells & Butlers, the company behind these statistics, comments; “Whether you’re entertaining friends and relatives, travelling to see family, or even having to work over the festive period, Christmas is rarely stress free.

"Whilst carving the turkey on the 25th is seen as tradition, our survey shows that in actual fact, more of us are having more than one Christmas dinner as a result of catching up with friends and relatives at their local Harvester or Ember Inns, festive parties at All Bar One and even as part of a Christmas shopping trip when taking a break at Browns.

“One of the reasons for this is the simple convenience of eating out. Not having to worry about cooking means that people have one less thing to think about – making the prospect of having Christmas dinner out much more appealing.”

Other stats revealed that Scottish families will be entertaining the most guests on Christmas Day, with 14% of those asked accommodating for 15 guests or more. And if you’re not tucking in to turkey, 37% of us would choose steak as an alternative.

(EDITOR: Along with a group of colleagues I will be attending a pre-Christmas dinner at an Indian restaurant.)

Need a gift? eBay it!

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For more ideas on Christmas gifts, be sure to visit www.eBay.co.uk

Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses

I believe this is one of the best Christmas songs ever!

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How to save £400 this Christmas

We have been in our house for twelve years now, we moved into our dream house exactly one month before Christmas twelve years ago.

As a result of the move into the show home, we had little time to plan our usual Christmas food and drink purchases, so we hit on the mutual idea of buying a Christmas hamper, instead. Or, as my wife, put it: "Let's have Christmas in a box!"

This year, twelve years on, my wife had the romantic idea of recreating that first Christmas by organising "Christmas in a box."

We visited supermarkets, we wandered through department stores, visited specialist websites and consulted old-fashioned printed catalogues and were left cold by the contents of some and we could not believe the prices that some were charging.

Twelve years ago we could get a genuine wicker Christmas hamper that was filled with festive goodies for a price that, though by no means cheap, certainly wasn't overly excessive. 

This year? It seemed that our plans were to be thwarted. Until I had an idea. Many years ago when I was still living with my parents, I had, over a period of a couple of months, created a collection of seasonal foods and condiments, which I presented to my mother a couple of days before Christmas.

Could we, I suggested to my wife. do the same thing this year, but for us?

My wife was very enthusiastic about the idea and we took ourselves off to the nearest branch of Lidl and bought mice pies, a Christmas pudding and a Christmas cake,  Christmas biscuits, biscuits for cheese, fudge, chocolates, Stollen, two bottles of wine, a bottle of  gluhwein,  a large case of beer, condiments, pickles and sauces and so forth.

The total cost came in at about £99. We later worked out that the same items in a Christmas hamper would have cost about £400 to £500.

The same savings can be made at Lidl, B&M Bargains and other discount stores.

Shop carefully as we did and you could save yourself a three figure saving. And if that doesn't help you have a Merry Christmas, we don't know what will!

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