Christmas Preparations and Wash-up, Part Two

Okay, it's a little odd posting again about Christmas this far after the fact, but the post-Christmas activities didn't finally complete until yesterday. Additionally, I've had something of a blog-holiday, and am only now just getting back into things, so here we are. This post picks up from a previous post on the topic from back in December...

• Cooking the Meal (revised): The major 'lesson learned' of the Christmas period is that when cooking the big roast dinner the oven doesn't actually reach the claimed temperature - between the oven being so very full and between the door being periodically opened (for basting the joint and/or putting things in), it was probably a good 10 degrees lower than was hoped. This naturally messed up my cooking times, especially for the turkey.
  
• Leftovers: The big Christmas meal is likely to leave a significant quantity of leftovers, especially when catering for a family of two adults and one tiny person. The leftovers will keep for a few short days, so it's a good idea to have a couple of plans for using them up - this year I made a turkey korma and a festive soup, which was good but still led to more waste than I would have liked.
  
• Sorting the Gifts: This is a fairly benign task - the wrapping paper goes straight to recycling, the various bits of packaging want removed (and sent to recycling), and then homes need to be found for the various gifts.
  
• Dealing with the Cards: At the end of the Christmas season, the Christmas cards should be gathered and quickly checked: are there any that need to be saved (for craft use, or similar)? If so, these should have the relevant sections harvested and taken away. The rest need to be checked for addresses and other personal information, and shredded if appropriate. And then it all gets recycled.
  
• Packing Up: The decorations come down on the 6th of January, in a reverse of the process of putting them up. Fortunately, this is a rather quicker process, since there's no need to worry about an artistic arrangement or similar. The only things to check are that (a) anything fragile needs to be packed with care, and (b) anything that has become damaged should be discarded immediately - don't wait for next year, or you'll never do it!

And that is that. I've been pretty happy with the way Christmas has gone this year, with only two caveats: the cook-time on the turkey and the wasted leftovers. If I cook again next year, I'll need to address both of these. (That said, hopefully next year I'll be in better health, and so be in a better place for that cooking. But I guess we'll see - being ill for Christmas happens distressingly often.)

The main thing I hope to add for next year, which I've quite fancied for a few years but just haven't found time for, is some Christmas baking - some nice festive biscuits or muffins or something. I think that's my next step, which I'll be building in some time early in December...