For Christmas dinner without the washing up, hotels are now a popular option, writes Róisín Ingle
She has wrestled more than 40 turkeys, baked the same number of hams and whipped up more trifles than she cares to remember. With her role as Christmas chef so firmly established, it came as a revelation when this year my mother decided to let someone else do the vegetable peeling and the cooking, not to mention the pot washing, for a change.
"Do you think," she mused in October, knowing full well she was delivering a verbal bombshell, "that this year we might possibly go to a hotel?"
When we got over the shock and some of us agreed to her request, the general consensus among the members of the family going to Alex, the restaurant at the Conrad Hotel in Dublin, for our Christmas dinner, is that it will either be a complete disaster or the most relaxed Christmas any of us have ever had.
It seems our family is not alone. Once the preserve only of hotel residents and tourists with no homes to go to, hotel restaurants are the destination for increasing numbers of Irish families opting to avoid humdrum Christmas chores such as laying the table, cooking the dinner and doing the dreaded washing up. It's not cheap - you pay anything from €120 for just the meal to €1,100 if you choose to stay over in the hotel - but it seems it's a price many of us are willing to pay to escape the myriad hassles of the most eagerly awaited meal of the year.
Most of the hotels around the country are booked out for Christmas dinner at this stage with inquiries starting back in early October. At the Westbury Hotel in Dublin there is a full house and a waiting list of 100 people, some of whom have let it be known that they don't mind being called on Christmas Eve should a cancellation arise. Christmas coordinator Deborah Curley says the clamour for a hotel-cooked turkey and ham has increased over the last couple of years.
"We've been amazed at the level of interest this year; we always have our regulars who've been having Christmas dinner here for years but the level of new custom is growing," she says.
John Brennan of the Park Hotel Kenmare in Co Kerry believes the trend of having Christmas dinner outside the home is due to lifestyle changes.
"Most modern families have parents who work very hard, often commuting; they don't want to spend their days off over Christmas getting stuck into domestic chores," he says. "We just recently had a couple with one child booking who decided against having a turkey in the oven and all that goes with it in favour of a special treat for the family where they will have nothing to do except enjoy themselves."
At €1,175 per person for the two-night Christmas break in the Park Hotel, this is only feasible for the privileged. But even with that price tag, the hotel is almost booked out.
DESPITE THE LIBERATING feeling that comes from knowing your Christmas dinner will be served up to you, some people are apprehensive about the experience.
"I am wondering how we will fit in, if we will have to mind our Ps and Qs and what the other diners will be like," says Ann, from Dublin city centre, who is looking forward to her first yuletide dinner not cooked by her own hands. "I suppose it's a fear of the unknown. Going to a hotel is a big step when you have been doing Christmas dinner at home for years.
"I am also curious about what the atmosphere will be like. We are quite a loud family when we get together and I am concerned that being in a hotel will be inhibiting - but then maybe that's no bad thing."
Any guilt about depriving waiting and cooking staff of their own Christmas festivities might be slightly alleviated by the knowledge that in most cases staff get paid double for their efforts.
The Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel in Killiney, Co Dublin is at the upper price range for Christmas dinner, at €175 per person. There is champagne on arrival and you can choose from smoked salmon, melon, spiced beef or pâté to start and Beef Wellington, poached turbot, roast duckling or the traditional turkey and ham for main course. Santa is on hand to give presents to the children and there's everything from fresh fruit pavlova, poached pear burgundy and cheese for dessert.
The one thing those dining out for Christmas dinner may miss, apart from the freedom to get stuck into the traditional family row, are the piles of turkey and ham sandwiches consumed later on in the evening. When I quizzed my mother on this not-insignificant sacrifice she confessed to having a contingency plan. She has already ordered a small turkey and ham which she will cook on Christmas Eve and turn into sandwiches on Christmas evening.
"It means I can choose fish for my Christmas dinner knowing I secretly have my turkey and ham to enjoy at home," she says.
Even if it seems to defeat the purpose of dining out, a big batch of home-made turkey and ham sandwiches consumed in front of your own telly is one Christmas tradition money can't buy.