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.)

I am starting to suspect that I might be the boring person. I am obsessed with maps and the best route from a to b and I once drove 12 miles to the next Waitrose in hunt of the perfect butter. I think I need to get out more.

My beloved DH and his lovely father talking about ISAs and pensions. I know it’s important to save for the future but it’s mighty dull listening to them witter on about investments and percentage returns etc over the dinner table. It’s only us so at least it’s not boring other guests though.

XH waxing lyrical about his sodding garlic press. As if he were the first person ever to own one.

NB I can tell a very long and tedious tale when I get going so I’m a being a hypocrite complaining!

The pros and cons of living in a house over three stories which we were minding for Christmas.
Bloom in' cheek we had!!

Dead people I don’t know .. but apparently do.
Horrific ailments of friends I have never met.
And now she is on Facebook , what I have written on Facebook and photos I have posted also any of my family’s posts and photos.. that I have already seen because I AM ON BLOODY FACEBOOK

Ha ha brilliant thread! I went to a dinner party just before Christmas where a big topic of conversation was whose boiler had high pressure and whose had low pressure and Christmas has just been spent with parents reminiscing about childhood illnesses they had, teachers who taught them, colleagues they worked with forty years ago, houses they lived in thirty years ago.. but it's fine as they enjoy telling us their stories.. even though we have heard most of them many times before!

Does anyone else have that same conversation every Christmas about the danger of drinking too much wine in case you become an alcoholic.. this after you've had, what, two small glasses?

And that same conversation about not eating too much food because you need to leave some for other people / after Christmas?

And does anyone else get invited for breakfast then told not to come too early as they might be having a lie in

MIL about the squirrels eating the bird food in the garden. Every visit includes a monologue about the latest squirrel raid and how she needs to adapt the bird feeder so they can't get onto it or how she's planning to dissuade them in the garden (currently spraying them with a water pistol). It's so dull. Tbh I quite like seeing the squirrels and pointing them out to my toddler when we're there.

*mrsfrosty" I can empathise...I am constantly mocked as the person who "always gets lost" . I have got lost twice - once when I was 18 and just passed my driving test, once when I was about 22 and just moved to a new area. I don't think that's actually that bad a record but any time we are late for anything it's "oh did foxes get lost again? Remember when she got lost 15 years ago"

We had dh deciding to weigh 3 yo ds on his mum's scales, then weigh himself, persuade his brothers to weigh themselves and then convert all of their weights to stones...for no reason. Then they all had a wee and weighed themselves again 🤔

We just had an epic one today where dh parents insisted they'd met one of our guests before but they have not! We know they have not as she is a very significant person between dh and parents and meeting for the first time was a BIG DEAL.

Mil has fabricated a memory that she was there when they first met. She was not but she "has a very good memory, you know..."

Fil backed up the story 100%....helpful!

Glad they've gone home but worrying insight into their deteriorating memories!

We’ve been unable to do our usual tour of relatives this Christmas so have been spared the lengthy discussions about terrible traffic on the M1 and diversions via the A246 then B46864216804 including how we’d have been better off going on the A47 via the B3874478&24 including getting the AA road map out to visually demonstrate the fact😁

Did anyone watch Gavin and Stacy last night? They sat in the pub having a conversation about the best service station to stop at along the M4. One of the most tedious subjects I’ve ever heard but they managed to make it sound interesting and funny.

Dp had a mate round while we watched that. He had to pause it so he and his mate could add their opinions and discuss service stations. It was very amusing!

I am constantly mocked as the person who "always gets lost"

Me too, I got lost going to my cousin's about thirty years ago. Never heard the end of it!

My Uncle telling me that a new housing estate that is being built near him has a bus stop. The bus doesn't go there apparently, so why do they need a bus stop? When I suggested that the bus company may create a new bus route when the houses were occupied was met with an eyeroll. Apparently I have no idea how bus routes work.

My dad just sold his vintage car. They had a lovely couple (also elderly) drive down from another part of the country and collect it. All great as they hit it off, stayed all day with him and my mum, had lunch, became firm friends. They all went to the bank together to pay in the cheque etc etc. Quite the day out.
But I got a blow by blow account of this from my mum. The couple had a long journey home. They rang my parents the next day and told them all about it. My mum relayed this all to me. I had an in depth account of the couple's journey home with dad's car on the trailer and mum even told me what the couple ate at the service station, and how expensive it was (very expensive! Pizza! at a service station!) She also couldn't stop telling me how wonderfully 'northern' this couple are (they aren't even that northern...my DP is more so!)

I sympathise with the getting lost stories,

3o odd years ago I was in a very minor accident where a car suddenly (in heavy and slow moving traffic) changed lanes in front of me and then slammed to a stop to avoid hitting the car ahead. I hit it. No real damage to either car.

My family still talk about how i am prone to careless driving and crashing. Never had a single point on my licence for anything and never had another accident of any sort.

Apparently I was an alcoholic before the age of 14 'don't give MoonCup a sip of wine, you know what she's like',

Mention that you're thirsty 'that's water, not wine, you know'.

'Well, they're not like Mooncup. They never drink', complete with cartoonish impression of a drunk.

My alcohol consumption was zero when this started. It's now crept up over the last thirty years to the terrible alcoholism of around 1-2 units a quarter.

They genuinely believe I have a drink problem, though.

The reason is that they thought it would be funny in the late 1970s to give me alcohol to see the face I pulled. What with it being so funny to upset a toddler like that. Turned out that I didn't spit it out. Which has made me the family alcoholic ever since.

Cant be arsed with that level of bullshit in my life. Just funerals now.

The finer points of possessive nouns when the singular noun finishes in S. St Thomas vs St James’s for example. Charles’ or Charles’s.

Oh, I forgot about the stories of how x's husband is such a talented musician and that he has an amazing musical career. Working as a barman in a pub where they put music on.

Both myself and DH actually make a living in music.

This thread is pure gold! We don't do Christmas but being a Jewish family my sister and I have had many laughs over convoluted introductions that end in a total anti climax- along the lines of: 'You know Maureen? Maureen with the hair? Her brother moved to Haifa with that girl from Ilford? That was Richard, lovely man, son married a Chinese girl, very pretty, and his daughter is a doctor at the Royal Free, oncology. Other son was awful, awful, sells beachwear. Anyway, her, I saw her buying a scarf in Fenwicks'

My stepdad went to the recycling centre. But it was closed! On a Friday! On closer inspection a sign on the gate says it's closed... EVERY FRIDAY.

I cannot take much further excitment.