Budget Christmas menu, around $13 per person

With drinks: Deviled eggs; Olives, tapenade and breadsticks; Beet hummus with crunchy veggies. To start: Beet carpaccio with goat cheese and clementine. For the main: Mushroom and Parmesan risotto. For the cheese course: Lamb's lettuce salad, warm goat cheese and honey. For dessert: Thin apple cinnamon tart.

For 6 guests, the big picture: cooked beets (480 g), arborio rice (480 g), lamb's lettuce (180 g) and puff pastry (1). The full grocery list, aisle by aisle, is right above.

In two trips. Three days before, the stuff that keeps (15 items: produce, dairy and pantry). Then the day before, the fresh stuff (9 items, like goat cheese log, fresh goat cheese and baguette). You'll dodge the last-minute crowds.

To sit down at 8:15 PM, the first step of the big day starts at 5:15 PM: make and bake the thin tart (25 min at 200 °C). Every step of the game plan is timed backward from when you sit down to eat.

This menu is vegetarian from appetizers to dessert, pork-free and free of fish and seafood. Kids get dishes they'll actually eat, and count as half a serving.

Yep, from 2 to 12 guests: change the number at the top of the page, and the quantities, the grocery list, the budget and these answers all follow.