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Original poster

Christmas dinner police

406 replies

Namechangesecretsignature · 18/12/2025 00:07

Can’t sleep and endlessly reading MN. Oh how I loathe the Christmas dinner police. Policing what “should” be on a Christmas dinner, calling it Christmas lunch (urgh), all the formalities and “musts”. Reminds me of my ex DP who was aghast for about 4 years straight that no one in my family liked turkey so we had beef for Xmas. His mother called my mother to clarify it was true (after a drink) and I’d go round to theirs over the Christmas period and the whole (large) family would be saying things like “I can’t believe you don’t have turkey on Christmas dinner.” “It’s not Christmas dinner without” “without turkey it’s tasteless” (????) “you must buy a turkey and a ham for Xmas even if it doesn’t get ate its tradtition” from the same people who buy 3 turkeys (Xmas day, New Year’s Day redo, then another on Easter(!!!!))

anyway I digress, I loathe it!

OP posts:
Adkim · 18/12/2025 17:12

Dinner is the main meal of the day at whatever time you eat it. There's far too much ignorant, snobbish nonsense about the way we refer to our meals. We're all too lucky to have good food on the table. End of discussion.

Bluedenimdoglover · 18/12/2025 17:10

OK, so you don't like turkey. Now we know that, what are we supposed to go with this gem of useless information?

Roobarbtwo · 18/12/2025 17:08

I say breakfast lunch dinner/tea. Interchangeable. I'm Scottish

I have a takeaway at Christmas as does my mum and since my brother split up with his last partner he comes to my mums for a takeaway too on Christmas day

No fuss. No waste. Sometimes my mum and I used to get the takeaway on Christmas eve and have pizza potatoes and veg for our Christmas dinner.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 18/12/2025 16:48

AquaForce · 18/12/2025 10:52

I was considering making individual 'toads in the hole' (or toad in the holes?)
with the leftover pigs in blankets. Trying to come up with some creative ideas for the leftovers to make a hot/cold buffet.

I might start a left overs thread.

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Pigs in blankets toads in the hole would be absolutely amazing, @AquaForce!

I am sadly utterly unable to make decent yorkshires and toad in the hole - it doesn’t seem to matter what recipe I use, or how carefully I get the tin screaming hit before putting the batter in, it never puffs up like my mum’s used to. I am a disappointment to myself.

Happyher · 18/12/2025 15:51

I serve Yorkshire puddings as a starter with any roast including turkey, though I think beef gravy is the best. Saves having to think what to have as a starter and doesn’t pile your main course plate up. And you can fill them with gravy. If there are spare ones people are welcome to have with their main course.

Mothership4two · 18/12/2025 15:34

AmyDuPlantier · 18/12/2025 09:26

I have never had this liquid bread 🤣

Is it an English thing? It sounds…like wallpaper paste.

I don't get it either and I'm English. We never had/have it with roasts or for Christmas. I think it tastes bland and it's a weird concept (to me).

Mothership4two · 18/12/2025 15:30

@Nos4r2

I don't care what people have for Christmas dinner.

This

DH insists on turkey for Christmas, one year I did goose instead and he wasn't happy - no-one else is bothered as long as it's a bird. As long as you treat it right you can make turkey flavoursome and moist. We just get a frozen one after having a dry and tasteless organic bronze free range one from one of the big supermarkets. I went and bought a (much cheaper) frozen Lidl one a few days later and redid the Christmas meal and the turkey was do much nicer.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 18/12/2025 14:51

TheNightingalesStarling · 18/12/2025 08:47

Traditionally, Yorkshire puddings, made with cheap filling ingredients, were served before a meal to fill you up so you didn't as much of the expensive meat or seasonal vegetables

My Yorkshire student landlady, back in the Dark Ages of the late 1960s, used to serve Yorkshire pudding with sultanas in, and gravy, as a first course before her Sunday roast.
I found it strange at first but it was very nice.

CharlieEffie · 18/12/2025 14:23

I always find it so strange when people are so impassioned by things that dont effect them...why do your inlaws care what you eat?! (Especially turkey which is the most boring/tasteless part imo) If your partner was so aghast he could have brought a turkey crown and cooked it himself. My partner mentioned our first Christmas i was cooking for that if would be strange that there would be no turkey as his dad is very traditional so i jokingly added turkey dinosaurs...and now its a tradition 😄

mydogisthebest · 18/12/2025 14:22

YouBelongHere · 18/12/2025 12:39

Yorkshire puddings belong on every roast dinner! People who limit it to just beef dinners are boring!!!

Me and DH are vegetarian so according to some posters should never eat yorkshire puddings!

We eat them with every roast we make as we both love them. I make my own as we don't like frozen ones. Jamie Oliver's recipe works every time and I make a large batch and freeze them

Mildmanneredmum · 18/12/2025 13:41

MarchWay · 18/12/2025 07:34

We are an Asian Muslim family who love Christmas! We pick the best bits of traditional meals and eat them our way ;-)
Chicken instead of turkey, no pigs in blankets but yes to roast potatoes and veg. Table full of crackers and hats. Chocolate pudding instead of Christmas pudding. And as for Yorkshires, it’s a big yes! My mum is not much into food. But goodness she loves Yorkshire puddings with her chicken!

Our Muslim ‘Christmas Day’ involves presents, spending time with those we love, playing games and eating delicious food. Reckon we have got some of it ‘right’ whatever the police say?!

You make me want to stand up and cheer!

Misspellings · 18/12/2025 13:17

Christmas dinner to me is just a Sunday roast, with pile of veg and pigs in blankets.

Depending whats in the freezer that will be my dinner, I'm also painting my kitchen out on Xmas day.

I dont do Xmas at all way to much faff.

Aluna · 18/12/2025 12:49

HelloPossible · 18/12/2025 12:44

I actually love turkey but only home cooked. It’s shocking outside the home in restaurants or in the hands of someone who can’t cook. So good in sandwiches too. You do you is what I say for Christmas as long as I don’t have to eat beef or lamb or curry or party food or something else which isn’t a traditional Christmas dinner I am happy and that’s never going to happen hopefully. Bring on the bread sauce, can’t wait.

Me too. I actually eat some turkey the rest of the year as you can buy turkey breast strips - they make a good stir fry with roast cashews. At Christmas is freezing slices of leftover turkey with stuffing, handy for a nice lunch.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 18/12/2025 12:46

DearDenimEagle · 18/12/2025 11:20

I’ve never thought sprouts were bitter. Interesting because I’ve always sai, we don’t know what other people are tasting so I never criticise likes and dislikes, especially in children, who definitely don’t taste things the same as adults. Anyway, you reminded me..we used to put sliced carrots, sprouts, parsnips (bleurgh ) and other veg like broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus into a roasting tray and drizzle honey over them before roasting .sorry wrong user quoted

Edited
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We like sprouts plain - just simmered for about 3 minutes, not boiled to a mush. I’ve always thought that all this buggering about with sprouts is because such people don’t actually like them.

True about taste buds differing though! Tea with milk tastes vile to me, so obviously I’m weird compared to the vast majority. Ditto goats’ cheese 🤢.

HelloPossible · 18/12/2025 12:44

I actually love turkey but only home cooked. It’s shocking outside the home in restaurants or in the hands of someone who can’t cook. So good in sandwiches too. You do you is what I say for Christmas as long as I don’t have to eat beef or lamb or curry or party food or something else which isn’t a traditional Christmas dinner I am happy and that’s never going to happen hopefully. Bring on the bread sauce, can’t wait.

YouBelongHere · 18/12/2025 12:39

Yorkshire puddings belong on every roast dinner! People who limit it to just beef dinners are boring!!!

WandsworthMommy · 18/12/2025 12:32

Well I'm not English so not only do I not have turkey I have none of the typical british english christmas spread - including no potatoes. lock me up!

Gallowayan · 18/12/2025 12:25

Sorethroatpain · 18/12/2025 00:23

I don't wish to be unduly pedantic but unless you're eating in the evening it's most definitely Christmas lunch

I don't wish to be unduly pedantic either...but for large parts of the country (namely the north and the midlands) the mid day meal is called dinner.

Happyher · 18/12/2025 12:17

Obviously the U.K. Christmas Dinner tradition is in its variety! Enjoy your interpretation of it next week 🎄

DarkForces · 18/12/2025 12:06

SapphireSeptember · 18/12/2025 11:54

What about Yorkshire puddings as pudding? My mum would do a massive Yorkshire pudding and serve it in slices, then do little ones and serve them with golden syrup. 😋

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We used to have them with brown sugar when I was little! 😋

Crikeyalmighty · 18/12/2025 12:05

PistachioTiramisu · 18/12/2025 11:35

It's absolutely delicious if you make it in the right way - packet stuff or pre-made from supermarkets just isn't the same. My father used to like it with sausages too!

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Strangely I’m not keen on the fresh stuff you can buy ready made - feels really sloppy - I actually prefer a colmans packet and made’quite stiff’

KilliMonjaro · 18/12/2025 12:00

Elsvieta · 18/12/2025 11:59

I have Northern relatives who can remember Yorkshires as starters - a big slab of the stuff with gravy, to fill you up a bit before they served the more expensive meat.

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Same. Yummy!

KilliMonjaro · 18/12/2025 12:00

Sorethroatpain · 18/12/2025 00:23

I don't wish to be unduly pedantic but unless you're eating in the evening it's most definitely Christmas lunch

This.

Elsvieta · 18/12/2025 11:59

SapphireSeptember · 18/12/2025 11:54

What about Yorkshire puddings as pudding? My mum would do a massive Yorkshire pudding and serve it in slices, then do little ones and serve them with golden syrup. 😋

Show quote history

I have Northern relatives who can remember Yorkshires as starters - a big slab of the stuff with gravy, to fill you up a bit before they served the more expensive meat.

Elsvieta · 18/12/2025 11:56

Anotherdayanotherpound · 18/12/2025 10:48

I always think back to the Victorians and Georgians etc for this one. Wasn’t dinner whatever was the largest meal of the day, which was at some points early afternoon for the upper classes, but then moved later, so that it became ‘posh’ to have dinner in the evening, hence lunxh at lunchtime. I can’t remember the details of it but it’s something like that. I generally have lunch in the middle of the day and supper/dinner/tea in the evening, but I do have sympathies with those calling it Christmas dinner, whenever it’s eaten, because it’s definitely the biggest meal of the day! I still call it Christmas lunxh because it’s a habit, but I find the origins of these things quite interesting

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I think it's partly that and partly the increasing tendency, post industrial revolution, for the majority of people to be out of the house all day, working in their factory / office rather than in / around their home, so cooking big hot meals had to be in the evening. The advent of artificial means of lighting the home of an evening probably also came into it. You can see how a pre-industrial farm labourer or craftsperson would want to be up with the light and working (and they didn't really do breakfast usually), hungry by about noon and thinking about bed once darkness fell.