The rules are very simple. I have to provide a full Christmas Feast, and gifts, for twelve people without spending more than £50 in total. I have to hunt, gather, grow, make or find everything needed to do this and learn the skills required to achieve this end goal.
I don't have a garden to grow vegetables in, I have a job, a marriage and other commitments that means I can't devote my entire life to this quest, so time is not necessarily on my side with this. I want to see if it is possible for a regular person to provide a normal, family Christmas for practically nothing.
The aim of this is not to be self sufficient, so there are certain ingredients that are impractical to get without a small-holding. These are regular 'larder' ingredients that most people have in their cupboards and sometimes rarely use. Things like milk, fats, butter, salt, spices, sugar are all excluded from the 'budget', as are things like thread, glue, sticky tape and nails for making gifts. I'm allowed to use the odd ingredient that people usually have in their house from time to time (citrus fruit, bottles of spirits and stock cubes for example), but I'm not allowed to make 'freshly squeezed orange juice', as that is using the ingredient as a major component of a part of the meal. I'm also not allowed to blow the £50 budget on a turkey, that amount of money is to be used for ingredients that it simply isn't possible - due to location, climate or practicalities - to find for free.
The most important thing is that everything I make has to look, and taste, right and has to adhere to a traditional Christmas Feast - and cost nothing!
