Christmas Dinner in the Crockpot, Christmas Eve Edition: The Menu and the Hour-by-Hour Timeline (Three 15-Minute Prep Blocks)

Hey, y’all! Christmas Eve at my house has always had the same shape: a church service in the late afternoon, four kids in clothes they did not want to wear, a house about to fill up with people, and a mom who is supposed to put supper on the table forty minutes after we walk back in the door. For years I did that with an oven. Then one December I did it with a crockpot, and I never went back. This is Christmas dinner in the crockpot, Christmas Eve edition: a menu that cooks itself while you are at church, three 15-minute prep blocks over three days, and the hour-by-hour timeline for the day itself.

Why Christmas Eve supper belongs in the crockpot, not the oven

Christmas Day already has a plan on this blog. The traditional Christmas dinner timeline walks you from two weeks out to the last hour, turkey and all, and if the big meal at your house is on the 25th, start there. This post is for the night before, which is a different kind of night.

Christmas Eve is the night nobody is home at supper time. There is a service, or a drive to see lights, or a last run to a grandmother’s house. An oven needs you in the kitchen at the exact wrong hour, checking, basting, pulling, resting. A slow cooker needs you at noon for about a minute, and then it leaves you alone.

In the years I was the CFO of my husband’s construction company from a desk in the corner of our kitchen, with four children and a December that never once slowed down for me, that bought me a Christmas Eve where I sat in the pew without doing arithmetic about the roast. Roughly thirty years as a CFO taught me that the best plan is the one that works when you are not there to watch it. The crockpot is that plan.

Christmas dinner in the crockpot: the menu that works

Pick one main. You do not need two. Every one of these fits a standard 6-quart slow cooker and feeds six to eight people with leftovers for Christmas morning.

Main 1: Spiral ham with brown-sugar glaze (the easiest)

A fully cooked spiral ham only needs to be warmed through, which is exactly what a slow cooker does best. Set the ham cut side down in the crockpot, pour a half cup of pineapple juice or apple cider over it, pat on a glaze of brown sugar, a spoon of Dijon and a pinch of cloves, and cook on low for about four hours for a 7 to 8 pound ham. Check the package for the temperature it wants and trust the package, not the internet. In the last half hour, spoon the juices back over the top so the glaze goes glossy.

Main 2: Sunday pot roast, Christmas Eve edition

A 3 to 4 pound chuck roast, seared in a skillet for five minutes if you have the minute and skipped if you do not, set on a bed of carrots, onions and halved small potatoes, with a cup of beef broth, a spoon of tomato paste, garlic, thyme and a bay leaf. Low for eight hours, so it starts at 9 AM for a 6 PM supper. It is the one that makes the house smell like Christmas Eve from noon on, which the kids will remember longer than the roast.

Main 3: White chicken chili (the soup-supper tradition)

Plenty of Southern families keep Christmas Eve as a soup night on purpose, and leave the big meal for the 25th. Boneless chicken thighs, two cans of white beans, a can of green chiles, a chopped onion, cumin, a quart of chicken broth. Low for six hours, shred the chicken with two forks right in the pot, stir in a block of softened cream cheese for the last 15 minutes while the rolls bake. Serve with tortilla chips, shredded cheese and sour cream and let everyone build their own. It is also the cheapest of the three by a wide margin, which matters in a month that is already asking a lot of the grocery line.

The sides that do not need you

• Mashed potatoes, made the day before. The make-ahead mashed potatoes in the Christmas dinner timeline reheat beautifully in a second slow cooker on low for two to three hours with a splash of milk stirred in at the end, or in a covered dish in the oven alongside the rolls if you only own one crockpot.
• Green beans. Fresh or frozen, into a hot skillet with butter and garlic for seven minutes while the rolls bake. This is the one thing you cook when you walk in.
• Rolls. Frozen, bakery, or brown-and-serve. Twelve minutes in the oven. Set the pan on the counter before you leave.
• Dessert. Already done. The make-ahead Christmas cookies you baked earlier in the week are the whole dessert plan. Put them on a plate. Nobody at a Christmas Eve table has ever asked where the pie was.

If you want a slow cooker that is big enough, or a second one for the potatoes, or the liners that make the cleanup a thirty-second job, the kitchen shelf of my Southern Life Amazon page has the ones I actually use. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, and the price to you is the same.

Three 15-minute prep blocks (December 22, 23 and the morning of the 24th)

Fifteen minutes, three times, with a hard stop at the end of each one. You are not cooking Christmas dinner on the 22nd. You are moving three small jobs off the 24th so the 24th has room in it.

December 22, after supper: Write the menu on an index card and stick it to the fridge. Check the ham or roast is thawing in the refrigerator, not the freezer. Write the grocery list for anything missing and hand it to whoever is going to the store tomorrow. Done.

December 23, any 15 minutes: Make the mashed potatoes and put them in the fridge in the dish they will reheat in. Mix the glaze or the chili spices in a jar. Wash the greens or slice the fruit. Done. If you only get to the potatoes, that was the block that mattered.

December 24, morning: Set the table while the coffee finishes, because a set table at 8 AM is one less thing at 5 PM. Then, at noon, load the crockpot: ham in, juice over, glaze on, lid down. Done.

The Christmas Eve timeline, hour by hour

This assumes a 4:30 or 5:00 PM church service and supper at about 6:15 when you get home, with the spiral ham as the main. If your service is in the morning, the ham holds on warm for a couple of hours without any harm. If you are doing the pot roast, start it at 9 AM instead of noon. Everything else stays the same.

• 8:00 AM. Coffee. Set the table while it brews. Put the rolls on the counter in their pan. Read the index card once.
• Noon. Load the crockpot. Ham in, low, four hours. Turn it on. Walk away.
• 1:00 PM. Quiet hour. Littles nap, bigger kids read or finish wrapping behind a closed door, and you sit down. This is not an optional item on the list. It is the item.
• 3:00 PM. Potatoes into the second slow cooker on low with a splash of milk, or onto the counter ready for the oven. Lay out church clothes.
• 3:45 PM. Turn the ham to warm. Spoon the juices over the top once. Lid back on. Shoes on children.
• 4:15 PM. Leave for church. The house smells like brown sugar and the kitchen is clean because nothing is happening in it.
• 6:00 PM. Home. Oven to 350. Rolls in. Green beans into the skillet with butter. A Big Kid puts the salad on the table. Potatoes get stirred. The ham gets lifted onto a board and sliced by whichever grown-up is steadiest.
• 6:15 PM. Supper. Somebody says grace. The ham is the first thing on the table and the last thing anybody worries about.
• 7:30 PM. The 15-minute kitchen reset: leftovers into containers, insert soaking, dishwasher started, counters wiped. Set a timer. When it rings, you are done for the night whether the pans are or not.
• 8:00 PM. Pajamas, the Christmas story read out loud in whatever version your family keeps, cookies off the plate, stockings. The kitchen is dark and nobody is in it.

Who does what, by age

A supper that cooks itself still needs hands at six o’clock, and the kids are the hands. Here is the split that worked at my table with four and works now at my grown children’s tables.

• Littles (2 to 4): carry napkins to the table one at a time, put a sprig of greenery by each plate, and be told they set the table. They did.
• Early Elementary (5 to 7): put the salad on the table, count the forks out loud, carry the cookie plate with both hands.
• Big Kids (8 to 10): wash the green beans on the 23rd, butter the rolls when they come out, fill the water glasses, read the card and tell you what is next.
• Tweens (11 to 12): own the green beans at the stove with you in the room, stir the potatoes, load the dishwasher in the 7:30 reset.
• Teens (13 to 15): load the crockpot at noon from the card, with you nearby but not hovering. Run the kitchen reset while you sit, which is real responsibility and they know it.
• Older Teens (16+): the one job nobody younger can do: the drive to the store at 3 PM for the rolls somebody forgot. Then they carve, because a 17-year-old who carves the Christmas Eve ham will do it at their own table someday.

When it goes wrong (because something will)

The ham is done two hours early. Turn it to warm, spoon the juices over it, lid on. A fully cooked ham holds on warm for a good while without drying out, and the glaze only gets better. This is the biggest reason to pick the ham over the roast when you are new to this.

You forgot to turn it on. It has happened to me. If you walk out the door at 4:15 and the crockpot is cold, switch mains: the white chicken chili on high is a two-and-a-half-hour supper, and the ham becomes Christmas Day lunch. Nobody at the table knows there was a plan A.

Somebody is sick. Then supper is soup, church is the people who can go, and the ham waits. The crockpot does not care what day it is. Some Christmas Eves are the one in the plan and some are the one you got, and the second kind still counts.

The December 24th I was trying to get to

One year, before the crockpot, I missed most of the service doing the math on a roast that was running late. I was in the pew and I was not there. The next year the ham went in at noon, and I sat down in that service and heard every word. We came home, the rolls went in, the ham came out, and we ate at 6:15 like the card said. That is the whole method. Not a prettier table. Not a bigger menu. A supper that does not need you for five hours, so you can be where you want to be on the one night it matters most. You can do it, y’all. One crockpot, three 15-minute blocks, and a card on the fridge.

Frequently asked questions

Can you really make Christmas dinner in a crockpot?

Yes, and Christmas Eve is the best night to do it. A fully cooked spiral ham warms through on low in about four hours with a brown-sugar glaze, a chuck roast with vegetables is an eight-hour low cook, and a white chicken chili is six hours on low. Sides come from a second slow cooker, the fridge or the oven in the last 15 minutes.

How far ahead can I prep a crockpot Christmas Eve dinner?

Three days, in three 15-minute blocks: the card and the thaw check on December 22, the potatoes and the glaze on December 23, the crockpot loaded on the 24th. Do not assemble raw meat and vegetables in the insert the night before and refrigerate it; a cold stoneware insert slows the cook and can crack. Load it the day of.

What size slow cooker do I need for a family Christmas Eve dinner?

A 6-quart slow cooker holds a 7 to 8 pound spiral ham or a 4 pound roast with vegetables and feeds six to eight. If the lid will not close over the ham, tent foil over it and add a half hour; next year buy one size down. A second small slow cooker for the potatoes is a convenience, not a requirement.

From the kitchen table where this plan got written on an index card to yours: keep tending the fire, y’all.