Christmas dinner made easy

Keep it short and sharp

Whatever you do, don't spend the next month trudging from store to store buying bits and pieces as you remember them. Instead, target a few very good stores and quickly sort it all out over the course of a couple of days.

Buying your meat

Let's face it, the big rib roast, glazed ham or – bird flu permitting – free-range turkey is not all there is to Christmas, but it is pretty fundamental. Choose well and your Christmas lunch centrepiece will also supply first-rate sandwich fillings for a few days afterwards. Visit or telephone your best local butcher, preferably a Q-Guild member, to order turkey, ham, beef plus any other meat products such as chipolatas and bacon that you want to eat over the festive season. Most will also sell a good ready-made stuffing and a selection of chutneys, mustards and pickles that are essential for helping you enliven the leftovers. Some also do cheese and raised pies, which are good for Boxing Day.

Support your local deli

Next, touch base with a fine food store or upmarket delicatessen for Vacherin, Stilton, smoked salmon, Christmas pudding and cakes, raised pies and preserves if you still need them, plus chocolates and food gifts. As with the butcher, you don't have to cart it all home and find fridge space for it that day; you just have to order to guarantee that the shop has what you want when you are ready to pick it up. Some of our favourites include:

 - Melrose and Morgan. Top Christmas picks include cheeses from Neal's Yard, meat from Rhug Estates, turkey and goose from Judy Goodman in Herefordshire, Stokes sauces and condiments, and chocolates from Madame Oiseau in Canterbury.
 - Mortimer and Bennett in Chiswick, where Dan Mortimer carefully selects artisan-made products from all round Europe. Their festive range often includes the famous Carved Angel Christmas pudding, traditional Christstollen from Dresden (a lovely light alternative to British Christmas cakes), marrons glacés in a wooden gift box, and small truckles of Isle of Mull Cheddar.

Supermarket solutions

Fresh fruit, veg, dairy products and soft drinks you need to handle nearer December 25 to maximise freshness, and you may as well do this at the supermarket so that you can stock up on paper kitchen towels, foil, cling film and loo roll at the same time. Alternatively, do the supermarket shop online but don't make the mistake of leaving this until the last minute. Ocado is offers Christmas delivery slots (that's from Dec 20 to 24) to its regular customers first, and smart folk will grab these quickly.

If you're determined to make things difficult for yourself by seeing what you can pick up at the last minute in your local supermarket, remember this golden rule: 'When in doubt, buy Duchy Originals'. It's one of the most reliable food brands available today, has an extensive range of Christmas products, and is organic and charitable to boot.

Cash-rich but time-poor

The gourmet (and admittedly pricey) option is to have everything – from vegetable side dishes and three-bird roasts to puddings and chocs – delivered by an artisan foods specialist such as Forman and Field or Heal Farm. Again, be wary of last order dates.

And the hardware

The right equipment is as important to Christmas dinner as the best ingredients. You don't want to be squeezing your carefully purchased roast into a tin small enough to make it stew. Invest in quality (it needn't cost a fortune) and you'll be roasting successfully for years to come. Opt for dark anodised aluminium tins from Mermaid, available at www.lakeland.co.uk and www.johnlewis.com. Delia Smith recommends them too! If you need other equipment such as turkey basters, gravy separators and peelers, the Good Grips brand is excellent value and comfortable to use – again you'll find them at Lakeland and John Lewis, both of which also offer a nice range of food gifts.

Recipe for success

This is the time of year when – really – no one wants anything fancy, they want simple traditional food nicely cooked, and plenty of it. Don't fall into the trap of flicking through a celebrity chef's book and thinking you'll have a go at something that looks nice in the picture – you'll wind up with something like Bridget Jones's blue string soup. Instead, visit BBC Food's Christmas pages where you will find the best video cookery tuition available, including Sophie Grigson's roast turkey with bread sauce, Mike Robinson's beef with Yorkshire pudding, Lesley Waters' Christmas pud and Paul Merrett's custard. The 'classes' are easy to understand and you can play them over and over again whenever you need. Elsewhere on the site are interactive festive menus from culinary names such as Nigella Lawson and Rick Stein. These can be scaled to serve between four and 16 guests. There's also a tailored shopping list and wine recommendations to go with each course. But whatever dishes you eventually choose, do try to keep the overall menu simple, especially if you're cooking for more people than you normally do.