Prep early, stock smart and make your kitchen work for you. Chill bubbles the night before, stack salads in clear containers and keep grazing plates ready to roll. Hosting is less about juggling – more about timing. Christmas is a marathon, not a sprint to the esky.

This fridge has more intuition than most co-hosts. The Hisense PureView French Door Fridge tracks ingredients, manages recipes and lets you peek inside without opening the door – keeping the prawns cold and the host cooler. With generous space, clever storage and a dark antibacterial liner, it eliminates up to 99.9 percent of bacteria, helping keep your food fresher for longer. It’s sleek, smart and unflappable – everything you aspire to be on Christmas Day.

Start mellow, end strong: Bing, then Bublé, then Mariah. Good music forgives burnt potatoes and slightly soggy salads. Pro tip – match your playlist to the menu: upbeat for canapés, classics for mains, singalongs for dessert.

Fresh, fast and joyful: whip up this super-simple goat’s cheese salad with radicchio and walnut vinaigrette. Or, for something extra festive, try a rockmelon salad with mozzarella and prosciutto. It looks impressive, tastes like summer and pulls together in no time.

Stack your platter like a pro: soft cheeses, crisp fruit, salty nuts, something crunchy, something sweet. Add a drizzle of honey and let the guests graze away. Gaps are good – they make it look styled, not stuffed.

The hero of every Australian Christmas. Glazed, roasted or sliced straight from the fridge – ham is the gift that keeps on giving. Serve warm with pineapple relish, or cold with rye bread and mustard. Dice leftovers through pasta or salad the next day. Pro tip: wrap tightly and chill – it’ll last the week.

Make a jug of grapefruit spritz: Prosecco, grapefruit soda, gin and a splash of Campari. Pretty, refreshing and dangerously easy. Garnish with grapefruit slices to keep it feeling fresh and festive – it’s Christmas in a glass.

Humidity is the enemy of crunch. Make your base the night before and top just before serving – cream, mango, passionfruit, done. Or channel delicious. style and add espresso and marsala for a grown-up upgrade.

After the feast comes the fallout: napkins, tablecloths, mystery stains that may or may not be gravy. Hisense’s 8i Series Washer and Dryer Combo takes care of it quietly while you put your feet up, with a 12kg washer and 8kg heat-pump dryer in one, plus WiFi control so you can run a load from the couch. And when a long lunch turns into dinner, you can wash and dry a 1kg load in just 49 minutes, ensuring you never run out of fresh napkins or tea towels. The steam refresh setting also helps revive crumpled linen and tablecloths without a full wash, and the auto-sensor works out the right water and cycle time so you’re not fussing. A washer-dryer that multitasks so you don’t have to – the real Christmas miracle.

Between seafood, trifle and 20 kinds of leftovers, fridge real estate is gold. Keep things tidy by labelling containers and storing by ‘temperature zone’: top for dairy, middle for meats, bottom for veg. The Hisense PureView French Door Fridge allows you to maintain complete temperature control by customising your storage space with the My Fresh Choice zone. Effortlessly convert it from fridge to freezer, adjusting temperatures from -20°C to +5°C based on your storage preferences.

The Christmas holidays are made for relaxing. The Hisense 116-inch RGB MiniLED TV turns the lounge into the best seat in the house for cricket, carols or whatever holiday movie wins the group negotiation. The ultra-bright RGB MiniLED panel keeps colours crisp even with daylight creeping in, and the built-in 6.2.2 CineStage X Surround with Opéra de Paris | Devialet delivers cinema-grade immersive sound, so you don’t need extra speakers cluttering the room. And with WiFi and all your streaming apps ready to go, the only decision left is who gets to hold the remote.

Let’s face it: half the fun of cooking for Christmas is knowing you’ll have plenty of leftovers. Lean into day-after magic: roast turkey baguette with cranberry slaw, skewered BBQ prawns or mango coconut pancakes (or pancakes topped with whatever fruit survived the night).

When the day winds down and everyone’s making a second pass at the pav, the Hisense L9Q Laser Home Cinema steps in. The ultra-short-throw projector pairs with a 120-inch screen to create a genuine theatre-style picture at home, with bright, accurate colour thanks to its triple-laser light source. All you need is a spare wall and a bit of space – the bedroom, the back patio… you could even blow up the good lilo and set it up for a nighttime movie session in the pool. With built-in streaming apps, it’s easy to move from film to music to a round of karaoke – which you can take to the next level thanks to the L9Q’s 10 finely tuned speakers. The Hisense L9Q turns a regular summer evening into something that feels like an occasion, without needing to leave the house.

Think like a prep chef, not a perfectionist. Freeze grapes for wine chillers, wrap cutlery in napkins and line serving trays with baking paper for a quick clean-up. Keep herbs handy for last-minute garnishes and use jugs for cocktails, not individual serves. A few smart shortcuts help turn chaos into calm.

Something will spill. The ham might dry out. Someone will forget the extra bag of ice they promised to pick up. The trick is to laugh about it first and fix it later. A calm host makes a great day – everything else is just garnish. For more information on the latest range of Hisense appliances and wear to buy, visit the website and follow on social media for the latest news, announcements and products.