Most boring family Christmas conversation competition

[GinNsnowmen]

So far this Christmas break we have had how the woman across the road keeps her bins to the SIDE of her path at the driveway and a long extended discussion about the pros and cons of bin positioning. Apparently "we just don't know what she gets up to" is a comment that was appropriate in that conversation. I'm not sure what my neighbours think about my bin position?!!

High drama of the day has been when an unknown car parked perfectly legally near the house. This prompted lots of walking back and forwards at windows and some fake retrieval of stuff from our cars to nosey. Can anyone compete with that level of drama? A friend suggested we log it with 101.

(And as it seems necessary to say this these days this is lighthearted. I love my family but in large doses they are exhausting and this is just some light relief to keep me smiling politely.)

@Spinsrap your response made me laugh out loud and get funny looks from my dog!

Oh what a joyous thread. Both my parents parents were dead by my early twenties and I haven't heard a conversation like these in years. So nostalgic, thanks all.

He also had his kerb dropped without consulting DM
All my near neighbours have put dropped kerbs in in the last couple of years and now there’s no off road parking. I can talk about this at some length. I am one of those people aren’t I?

I have enjoyed this thread no end!

My mum's husband is a royal pain in the arse and our conversations are always him berating my autistic kids for getting within a metre of his precious breakable Christmas ornaments that he insists on putting in the direct eye line of a 4 year old. Interspersed with Brexit, how the youth don't know how good they've got it, how kids were more well behaved in his day. How he's happy the country is in the hands of a man because could you imagine if a woman with a tiny woman brain would cope with the job and do all her other woman duties. The list is endless. This has been very therapeutic, thanks!

I give you the right time and technique to prune an apple tree.(1.5 hours).

My grandparents told me about their dealings with the Triads, which was unexpected

DP and I dodged this by spending Xmas on our own. We probably had plenty of dull conversations of our own along the lines of ’who’s this bloke?’ [ in a telly thing] ‘oh, you know, it’s whatsit from that thing with that woman ...’ .

Another exciting conversation we had is what everyone normally eats for breakfast.
Each person trying to outdo the other on healthiness.
My mum : aldi granola with coconut yogurt on and added unnamed seed mix which keeps her going all day then you see.
Mil: fruit and yogurt
Fil: boiled eggs but full cooked breakfast on a Saturday.
Etc etc.

I even found myself joining in this conversation with some excitement. (Shreddies if you’re interested, Lidl version).

another one
dont put too much on my plate I dont eat a lot you know and I dont like garlic- not sure there is any on christmas dinner
Every desert ever offered and eaten too sickly for me
Tea time do you want any tea
Well think I can manage a small something I'm not a big eater you know

"How long have you had this tree now? Is it the original tree you got in [random year]? Have you had to replace it? How many branches does it have? Has it lost any? How do you pack them up after Christmas?"

JUST TAKE THE ARSING TREE I DON'T CARE ANY MORE YOU HAVE OVERTREED MEEEEEE

Mil moaning about the "click" [sic] in their village. Mil has lived there 55 years and Fil for 78 years. I wonder if they ever wonder why they aren't in the click, if indeed there even is a click.

I thought DH and BIL were scraping the barrel with how many days the mornings will be darker post-equinox before the days start to lengthen both morning AND evening....but this thread has proved me WRONG

MIL came up with a corker but it's too identifying so I can't tell you. It is SO Mumsnet I can't stand it

I enjoyed a boring phone call with my uncle (traffic, neighbours hedge, the price of a pint in his local compared to my local hahaha...). The real bonus was when he, for more than a whole minute, just held the phone out in his lounge so I could hear my cousin's children chatting amongst themselves and the TV.

The endless conversation by the men of the family about how everyone travelled to the party - what road they used, what the traffic was like, what mileage to the gallon they got from the car, where they stopped for a pee etc etc. Then I saw almost the same conversation on Gavin and Stacey and I roared with laughter. Everyone just looked at me, puzzled.

I feel your pain, my parents own a farm house and have a lot of animals and the neighbors are about a five minute walk either side, so not a lot goes on that they don't find exciting. We all spent Christmas there this year (me and my six kids, my brother, his wife and their three, my sister, her husband, my other sister, her boyfriend, two younger brothers, mum, dad, cousin, six dogs and random family members popping in an out), and I think the best few conversations went like this:

dad: Jon up the road got a new tractor for the fields.
DB1: oh, yeah? how are his carrots doing?
dad: good, I hope. we've bought them for the carrot cake your mum's making tomorrow because we sold all of ours to Phillip.
DB2: what? why? Phillip hates our carrots.
dad: Phillip's wife hated our carrots
mum: but Phillip's wife left him.
DB3: when? why?
DS1: what the hell? they've been married since they were sixteen.
dad: she caught him in the bath with bubbles and said it was the final straw.
me: they broke up over him getting a bubble bath?
mum: bubbles is the dog, love.
DS2: that makes more sense.
DB1: profit on the carrots, though.

mum: that dress looks a bit big on you, love.
DS1: I'm seven months pregnant, mum, it wasn't going to be small in the first place.
dad: you can't just fatshame your daughter.
mum: I didn't, I fatshamed my grandchild.
dad: not much better.
mum: at least I didn't fatshame them all this year, only one of them.
dad: you're only on your second glass of wine. we have time.

me: girls, stop fighting with your cousins, it's not nice to fight.
dad: let them fight. toughen them up a bit.
mum: they're not in fight club.
dad: they could be.
me: they're all under six. I doubt it.
dad: baby fight club.
mum: now that is a quality business idea.
DD1: mum can we join a baby fight club?
me: anyone want more sweets?
DD2: I want to be in fight club.
DD3: me too!
me: thanks, dad.

Can't wait to move back down here in a few months, going to be brilliant!

I want to hear more about Philip, the carrots, the dog and the ex!!

The only topic of conversation my dad has is television. He will rattle off half a dozen programmes, of which I will have seen none. If, by some fluke, I’ve had time to watch telly and can contribute, he loses interest immediately. It is infuriating. There is no way to mute him so you wait patiently for it to run its course...

All of you together in one place?!!!!! Bloody hell. Excellent survival skills. A monthly update when you've moved could make your fortune. Get blogging

Sorry mummycubs you don't belong on a thread about boring conversations because
a) that conversation is HILARIOUS!!!

and b) you need to seriously get into scriptwriting. You have gift!

(Do you think in 20 years time your dds are going to reminisce about the Christmas mummy broke their hearts over baby fight club?)

A few years ago dfather
'I have a shower Sunday to Friday but on Saturday I have a radox bath'
Dfil
' Now I'm similar. I have a shower Monday to Saturday and have my radox bath on a Sunday.'

My Mum also has the habit of talking about people that I don't know,although she insists I do.....and she'll also add the ' can't remember the day of the week I saw them' conversation
Mum- 'You remember Mrs Bates?'
Me- 'No don't think I don't
Mum- 'yes you do! She had that nasty Corgi dog years ago whi didn't like children '
Me'- no, definitely don't remember her'
This goes on for a bit....then it's...
" Well,I was at the shops last Thursday....oh, no it was Friday....actually, was it Friday? No it wasn't Friday because I was at Doreens then. Must have been Thursday then...or was it Tuesday? Perhaps it was, because your brother took me shopping so it must have been....."
She's now forgotten what she was going to tell me.......

ILs having seemingly endless conversations about which shops are still on the high street in their town centre and which used to be there, but with seemingly no understanding of economics (MIL in particular). BHS was so great you see. They shouldn't have got rid of it because she used to go there a couple of times a year. It's wrong to just close it down. And the newsagent in the corner by McDonalds, you know the one. Near the railings! Well, it used to be a bakery. Went there once but Tesco's bread is cheaper so we never went back. Not sure why it closed, was nice to have it on the high street etc etc. Will usually end up with some sort of argument between PILs about a what a shop used to be, ie:

"The Poundland used to be a Poundworld, it was better then"

"No it was Poundstretcher, I remember, we've never had a Poundworld here"

"Yes we have! You know that toy I bought niece for Christmas one year that she loved? Well I got it from there"

And so on...

@49managedmis still wrong, it's "jukebox" not duke box!

My DM is either reciting other people's Facebook posts - 'Did you see Fanny Adam's post about her holiday?' then telling you what it said even though you said yes, you have seen it.

Or she is retelling an entire episode of one of those ambulance programmes, every symptom, every patient, every diagnosis.

If we're really unlucky she will be telling us all how much she hates my Cousin's exH for cheating and leaving cousin with 4 small children and how she would give him a piece of her mind if she ever saw him. This happened 6 years ago and cousin is now very happily re-married plus if DM ever did see him she wouldn't say a word.

No wonder my Dad won't wear his hearing aids!

prettycolours, TBF, my household has more than once had a similar 'Is it a Poundland or a Poundworld or a Poundstretcher...?' conversation

DP's mum raged for half an hour that some of her presents where wrapped in cheap, flimsy wrapping paper I may have said nothing as I was the Primark paper buying culprit and that she wouldn't be able to do her usual thing of re using it for next year's presents, not unless she double wrapped things...