In laws with tiny stomachs

My stepmother has always been like this and she’s enlisted my dad into her micro eating ways. They are both tiny, twig thin now. With her it’s pretty clearly part of an eating disorder or OCD with a fixation on food and body shape and size. It’s very sad really, she got osteoporosis very young and I have wondered if it was exacerbated by not eating properly all her life.

A typical day for them would be toast for breakfast, fruit for lunch. A big, filling lunch would be 2 oatcakes and a blob of hummous. Then a very healthy carefully cooked dinner with quality meat bulked out with spinach and lentils. Sometimes lunch is skipped if something momentous happens like having a scone to share in a cafe.

I have always been made to feel like a big greedy giant for wanting more food, OP! I sympathise with you a lot.

Yeah but it's not your effing business and if you're hosting then you're meant to host, not judge
Who is judging whom? Maybe what they are eating, which I'm sure is slightly more than what OP described, is nornal for them so assume it is normal for others.

The same way OP believes what they eat is normal and the quantity her in laws eat is wrong.

We all have different appetite and eating habits. Maybe OP could stop criticising her in laws and just accept they will have to bring more food with them if they hav bigger appetites.

I have friends ( 70 ish ) who hosted their son and teenage sons at Christmas
roast potatoes were placed in the middle of the table , and everyone was told two each !
friends thought that was normal and were outraged at their gluttony ( lol) , however I have always a second tray of roasties cooking on the oven , for people to have as extras when they finish their main Also have early 20s lads to feed

incredulous was not the word !

My parents brought out a box of crackers (like crackers for cheese, not the type you pull), from last Christmas- the BB date was April 2025. “We just haven’t been able to get through them”. The definitely aren’t hard up, have had several holidays abroad this year, whilst being unable to finish a box of crackers. They were so soft 🤣

I think that this is grounds to leave your husband tbh 😄😄💐

We had an aunt like this , was very wealthy but so miserly with food . Every time we went to theirs for lunch we had to set off home and stop at the first cafe we found to eat properly . It’s not fun .

OP, tell your wet lettuce of a “D”H that this is your last visit at PIL’s and mean it. Never again.

Take the kids and go out to eat. Tell them that and F “not rocking the boat”

You’ve bought the food and they are refusing to give it to you and the kids?

Extremely rude and crap hosting.

As a child, I thought my parents pronounced it horses Dovers and it’s clearly been around a while
“Whatever you eat, may it always repeatBe it soup, fish, entree, or horse doovers,May blue bottles and flies descend from the skiesAnd use your bald head for manoeuvres.https://folksongandmusichall.com/index.php/christmas-day-in-the-cookhouse/

Yeah but it's not your effing business and if you're hosting then you're meant to host, not judge.

My father and grandmother are a bit like this and when I eat more than they do they always have to comment on my "healthy appetite" in a snide way. I'm not even overweight but they're particularly skinny and martyrs about it. Being underweight isn't even healthy FFS and these two don't look great either so I don't know why they even feel so superior.

I hope you can make other plans for next Christmas, OP! Somewhere you can eat well which surely is one of the great pleasures of Christmas.

I don't eat 3 meals a day, it's not a requirement.

OMG. I remember my late great aunt invited my late grandmother (they were sisters) they had one of those mini bottles of wine (a quarter of a standard bottle of wine) spilt 4 ways - a glass thimble over two meals. I say thimble as a quarter of these bottles is 45ml.

My elderly dad has the appetite of a sparrow (and stomach issues and a hiatus hernia) so eats very little. But if you are visiting him he’ll fill a fridge for you. And throw money at you to buy more/eat out if you need to. Thinking ‘because I am not hungry others will not be hungry’ suggests a lack of empathy and is highly irritating.

Yeah, fair enough. I'd be struggling to spell "hearty meal" on the miniscule amount of food you've been subsisting on. It's very inhospitable to starve one's guests.

It's hard to answer because I've had family members who consider I eat next to nothing and are starving myself when I have a perfect BMI and theirs put them in the overweight category. I don't have the heart to say to them that my calorie intake is fine, theirs on the other hand is the problem.

Every year on MN there is a post from someone spending Christmas with their stingy relatives who eat like birds and serve tiny portions to guests. Is it the same person, or is this is really common?!

Yeah my mum got like this.

she does at least acknowledge that other people want more than one meal a day.

best one from Christmas was when she suggested having turkey and a salad for Christmas Day which got a look of horror from literally everyone else in the room and she was firmly told that we will be having a proper Christmas dinner.

Well yes that's a scientific fact. However if you are hosting people then surely you want to ensure your guests are comfortable and happy so you get extra in

We were asked if we wanted Horses Doofers at our wedding many decades ago. The name has stuck ever since

But will happily let you and the children suffer the consequences of not 'rocking the boat' with his parents. That's difficult to explain.

Do they not have breakfast food in the house that you can help yourself to ?
Or toast that you can make for the end of the day if hungry ?

YANBU to not want to be starved.

YABU for "horderves". 😉

I've hosted Christmas and fed 8 for Christmas Day and Boxing Day. There were meat leftovers (which are in the freezer) but not much veg. There are some home made mince pies and a whole Christmas cake and lots of cheese and crackers (which will last ages). In short - there's not much left and I have had to get food out of the freezer for today.

MIL, however, is commenting to anyone and everyone that there is 'so much food' and that I have 'hugely over catered'. So much so that DH has just told her to stop it and pointed out that it's rude to comment on someone else's hosting. She's been sulking all day as a result. Fortunately we have just dropped her off at home and gone away for a few days. She's driven me so crazy that I actually cried in the car when we dropped her off out of sheer relief.

We won't be hosting her next year. If DH's siblings don't step up (and they probably won't) she'll be on her own but DH is resolute. I've never seen him this fed up with her.