Well since you posted on my thread you certainly know how much I have to cook, and trust me when I say the most vital part of success is the timetable! (pies, cakes, 3 turkeys, 2 hams, rolls, broccoli casserole, roasted corn and one oven lol). I didn't know cakes could be frozen, a little late for me to experiment on that one but I very seriously will take that into consideration for next year, hmm... Well the one thing I do know about making Christmas dinner a success no matter how many people you serve is doing AS MUCH PREP AHEAD AS POSSIBLE. Without that it would be a total disaster for me personally. I am making my pies/cakes Weds morning after I get home from working third shift, this has worked well the last two years I've done this. I keep the pies well wrapped in the fridge and use covered cake plates to keep the cakes fresh. I don't know about anyone else but it does work for me. Anything else you can do ahead of time would probably help. One thing I have to make by popular demand is my broccoli casserole, and I've found I can make those up to the point of putting them in the oven the night before, cover the pans tightly, and then bake them in the oven when needed. I know that different dishes like that can be prepped at least to that point ahead of time and it's a lifesaver! Another thing that I adopted last year (actually I am working on it right now
) is what I call my "battle plan." I make of list of everything that will have to go in the oven once I start my straight block of final cooking with the times required (I go for the high end of the cooking time to be safe, i.e. for 35-45min put down 45min, if the item gets done sooner then great, the more time I have to do other things). Once that is done I put them in the order that they need to be finished and if the oven temp needs to be changed put that between the items on the itinerary. To give an idea it's something like this:
8am Broccoli Casserole (350 for 45min)
8:30 Place the Oven Roasted Corn on the Cob on second rack (350 for 30min)
8:30-8:45 Take out Broccoli Casserole
9am Take out corn
Increase temp to 375
9:10 Crescent Rolls (11-13min)
There will be points where the timetable may not go as perfectly as you want but then I just shrug it off, mark new times and move on. While one thing is baking make sure to have the next item ready to go in, the whole point of doing this for me at least is it seems a lot easier to have it all down of paper and SEE what needs to be done and the amount of time each thing will take. It helps to prevent any mixups, confusion, or forgetting to do something and therefore panicking when the oversight is realized. Hope any of this helps!