The glorious thing about homemade Christmas food is that the planning and preparation for the big day starts so far in advance. There’s a real sense of anticipation that builds as jars are cleaned, ready to be filled with chutneys and pickles, dried fruits are set out in bowls and soaked in brandy for puddings and cakes and the scent of cooking and the sound of bubbling pans on the stove fills the air. And all this before the month of December even starts.

Whether you take the traditional route and plump for a turkey or goose for your Christmas feast or you plan for something a little different, there are many elements of Christmas dinner that can be prepared and made well in advance of the big day and that add a certain sense of occasion to the celebrations.

It’s time to dig out your best crockery, polish up the silverware and iron your best tablecloth. Christmas comes but once a year, and it’s time to start getting ready.

Christmas pudding – 5 weeks to go

‘Stir-up Sunday’ traditionally takes place on the last Sunday before Advent and is the day when each member of the family takes a turn to stir up the mixture for the Christmas pudding, make a wish and add a coin for good luck. The pudding is made and steamed at least a month in advance of Christmas Day to give the flavours of the fruits, spices and brandy time to mix, mature and develop. Add dried figs for a traditional figgy pudding, as celebrated in the Christmas carol “We wish you a Merry Christmas”, and to give a lovely crunch to its texture. Store your pudding in a cool, dry place and reheat it on Christmas Day, either by steaming again or warming through in a microwave, before it’s flambéed at the table with a generous spoonful of brandy. The recipes in Woman and Home magazine’s are sourced using local and seasonal ingredients and can offer a modern twist on such traditional classics.

Pickles and chutneys – 1 month to go

Jars of homemade preserves make wonderful presents for friends and family and are a great way to use up the bounty of the autumn harvest. Use a traditional Kilner jar, tied with a red ribbon and fill it to the brim with a recipe of your choice. Brown paper parcel tags make great gift tags for the jars and give a warm, rustic feel that will complement the earthy flavours within. According to Delia Smith, chutneys should be matured for a month before eating so that their flavours can mix and meld together.

Choose from seasonal goodies like cranberries, apples, oranges, raisins and ginger – or base your chutney on dried fruits like apricots, prunes and figs. The BBC’s is a great resource for classic festive recipes, and for seasonal ingredients look out for Delicious magazine with its focus on style and home grown recipes.

Pickling and preserving red cabbage makes it the most festive shade of red imaginable. With a definite kick of heat from the black peppercorns and mustard seeds that go into the pot as it’s made, it makes the perfect sweet and sour accompaniment to glazed ham or roast goose as the sharp tang of the wine-rich cabbage cuts through the juicy fats of the meat. Bottle and jar it as a gift for friends to be kept until Christmas Day.

Christmas cake – 4 weeks to go

More fruit and spices are involved in the making of Christmas cake, the rich fruitcake that’s packed with delicious flavours like cinnamon, treacle, vanilla and mixed spice and filled with dried fruits, mixed peel, cherries and blanched almonds. In her wonderful book “Feast”, Nigella Lawson advises storing Christmas cake for “at least three weeks” and so at this stage you can allow for four weeks, to be on the safe side.

To give it a little extra punch, Christmas cake can be ‘fed’ with brandy after it has been baked. To do this, make a few holes in the cake with a skewer and then pour a tablespoon or two of the liqueur inside, letting it soak in before wrapping it tightly in foil. This feeding can be done every week in the run up to Christmas Day and makes for an incredibly rich and moist cake that tastes wonderful with a hunk of crumbly Lancashire or Wensleydale cheese. And, when it comes to decorating your Christmas cake with flair, Cake Craft and Decoration will give you a host of wonderful ideas, from marzipan layering to sugar craft details.

Mincemeat and mince pies – 3 weeks to go

Another very welcome gift from the homemade kitchen is mincemeat, that tangy, chewy ‘jam’ that mixes the citrus of lemon zest with mellow flavours of dark brown sugar, raisins, currants and brandy. Homemade mincemeat needs to be stored for at least at least two weeks before it’s served. Once it’s developed and the flavours have matured it can be used to make traditional mince pies, or added as an extra ingredient in an apple crumble for an alternative seasonal pudding on Christmas Day. For vegetarian or vegan suet-free versions of mincemeat, browse though a copy of magazine or . In her “Feast” cookbook, Nigella Lawson developed a recipe for rhubarb vanilla mincemeat, where early pink rhubarb gives the “pectiny sourness” usually provided by the inclusion of cooking apples and thus gives an added twist to the expected flavourings.

Tree decorations and gifts from children – 2 weeks to go

It’s time to put up the Christmas tree, and what better way to decorate it than with some homemade shortbread biscuits? Many high-street supermarkets sell festive-shaped cookie cutters or you can find them with ease online. Look out for snowflake shapes, reindeer and Santa hats and stock up on brightly-coloured icing pastes, silver balls and jelly diamonds for the ultimate in retro biscuit fun. Remember to cut out a small hole in each biscuit before you bake them and cut lengths of beautifully coloured ribbon to hang them from the branches of your tree. The BBC’s home cooking series features a edition that’s ideal for Christmassy biscuit recipes.

Children love getting involved in the buzz of the kitchen and making chocolate truffles is an easy way for them to get into all kinds of happy messes. Truffles also make ideal gifts for youngsters to give to the people they love at Christmas, especially if they’re allowed to get involved in the gift-wrapping and decoration side of things. To make the truffles you’ll need double cream, unsalted butter and some good quality dark chocolate – BBC Food recommends using chocolate with at least 70{6c082c8494c21a03d17f10d863ee8b06d7dc461388e432433da70d4d6afda271} cocoa solids. You can experiment with a wide range of different flavourings and coatings; think about adding mint or rose essence to your mixture, and rolling the truffles in a variety of chopped nuts or even toasted coconut. Jamie Oliver is well known for his love of bold flavours and mouth-watering combinations – have a look at the Christmas edition of magazine to see what seasonal treats he has come up with.

Sauces and stuffings – 1 week to go

Cranberries. Those bright red balls of tart sweetness that sing of Christmas and that work so beautifully alongside slices of roast turkey or ham. Nigella Lawson suggests adding a slug of cherry brandy to her cranberry sauce recipe to intensify their beautiful colour.

A brilliant way to use up stale bread and to add some extra flavours to your Christmas dinner is with a dish of homemade stuffing, which can be prepared and made a week in advance then frozen until the big day rolls around. Choose from fruity flavours, including cranberry and orange, or try a more savoury version with chestnuts, bacon and freshly chopped parsley. magazine is on trend and gives a modern twist to traditional seasonal fare.

The night before – Christmas Eve – 24 hours to go

Christmas Eve can be a time for partying or for preparation. So much of the food for Christmas dinner can be prepped beforehand that it needn’t cause large amounts of stress. Consider peeling and chopping the potatoes for your roasties – and even par boiling them the night before. Carrots, sprouts and parsnips can all be peeled and sliced at this stage too and make simple hands-on work for children, whose excitement before Father Christmas makes an appearance can be put to good use.

Get into the festive spirit and whip up a batch of brandy or rum butter to store in the fridge with added ground almonds for extra marzipan-style richness and you’re almost set.

After your five weeks of planning and preparation it’s time for a final check that you’ve got a baking tin large enough for your roast, to put the wine in the fridge and to kick back and relax, knowing that a delicious homemade Christmas Day awaits you and your family and friends. Anyone for a mince pie?