Christmas “dinner” - can someone explain please?

[Notcontent]

I am not British although I have lived in the U.K. for some time now. For me, the main meal on Christmas Day has always been lunch. This would normally be at 1 pm or or a bit later.

On mumsnet I see a lot of people talk about having Christmas dinner, but at round 3 pm or later. Is this like a cross between lunch and dinner? I find this quite confusing...

Dinner ladies are now called lunchtime supervisors.

‘Dinner’ is definitely just the main meal of the day IME.

We had pre-breakfast at around 7.30 (a slice of toast as we were up and the toddler was hungry), full breakfast around 9 (scrambled eggs and smoked salmon), snacks 1.30ish (tempura prawns, sausage rolls, spring rolls, breadsticks, olives etc.) , dinner at 4 (starter and main) and then desserts around 8.

We have ours from 3pm onwards as I like it to be getting dark and the lights and candles twinkling. We have canapés around lunchtime with present opening so no, not starving.

Oh and crisps and chocolate available pretty much all day!

We eat our late afternoon as like a lazy morning opening gifts and a nice breakfast with no rushing around. We just have a late snack of crackers or soup late on so we aren’t hungry before bed.

(optional 'high tea' which is cup of tea and cake)

I would call that afternoon tea.

I think high tea is a bigger meal you eat sitting at a table and it includes savoury things like salad and cold meat.

In my family supper is an informal evening meal eaten at home, and dinner is formal (dinner party or 'going out to dinner') or served in a canteen. In DH's family supper is a pre-bed snack.

None of this matters as long as you know what somebody means when they ask you 'would you like some tea?'.

You can avoid starvation by always having 'lunch', which is always at midday, and should always be more than a biscuit.

We had ours at 7pm this year as I was cooking it. It worked out very well.

We generally have it just after the Queen’s speech- so just after 3pm.

@Notcontent

So I guess it means the Christmas dinner is really a very late lunch?

Nope

Christmas Dinner is the name of the meal not the time you eat it.

The time you eat it doesn't matter.
Eating Christmas Dinner at lunch time doesn't make it Christmas Lunch. It is still called Christmas Dinner

Christmas Dinner is the big main meal of the day. People eat it anytime after lunch time right through to the evening. It just depends on how your family prefers to do it.

I don't think Christmas Lunch is even a thing in the UK. I've never heard of anyone calling their main meal of the day Christmas Lunch.

Well I hope that has cleared it up for you @Notcontent!

I'm northern and commonly dinner is lunch, tea is dinner - that's not to say we eat our main meal at lunchtime.

To confuse matters even more, sometimes we will call lunch lunch too. May even shout dinners ready at tea time 😂 they're all just meals and everyone can see what time it is.

Christmas Dinner is Christmas Dinner whatever time you serve, you wouldn't call it Christmas tea or Christmas brunch

Christmas Dinner is the main meal of Christmas Day and is served at whatever time the Christmas Chef bloody well decides is appropriate. This can range from 12noon to 8pm, depending on mood, household tradition and culinary disasters.

Depending on what time it is served, the Christmas Chef tastes as s/he goes, and the rest of the diners eat Christmas Chocolate, Christmas Biscuits, sausage rolls and other gluttonous Christmas Food whilst they wait.

After Christmas Dinner, it is traditional for everyone to feel sick from having eaten too much.

Hmmm... this got me thinking. When I was young dinner was midday and tea was the big meal when you got home from school. Supper occasionally had as a top up snack. Not just northern IME.

I think these days I refer to lunch (1ish) and dinner (evening 6.30 -7pm - main meal of the day) and I'm not sure when or why I changed. Did I get posh?

Christmas dins is 2-3pm probably.

School dinners.
School dinner ladies.
Christmas dinner.
Grew up south to understand this was often a class thing ‘dinner‘ at lunchtime and ‘tea’ at dinner time (or early as for me dinner is 8pm onwards.
Some parts of U.K. it is less of a class thing and more of a local usage all classes thing.

Until your post I hadn’t even realised that I call it Christmas dinner too and always have done despite being a
‘Lunch’ user.

We had croissants in the morning, soup and turkey about 2.30, pudding at 5, then cheese about 9pm. (DP then wolfed a box of chocolate truffles before bed.)

@HeelsHandbagPerfumeCoffee

For us Light breakfast - smoked salmon or a croissant Stockings and church or hot tub ⬅️ Do you live in a brothel?

ha ha! I was thinking: 'Church OR hot tub' too, but hadn't jumped to brothel.

For us it is usually smoked salmon and eggs for breakfast (stockings)
Then Church
Then put the Christmas Dinner on and eat around 3 (not in stockings or a hot tub)
Then Puddings around 6/7pm, segueing into a Cheese board later.
Boxing Day is a massive buffet of leftovers / puds / cheeses.
When the kids were small we did the meals on the opposite days so there was more time to open and play with gifts (help with bike balance / assemble lego etc)

I find this quite confusing

Really? You can't have thought very hard about it then. If you are eating a huge meal, you aren't going to eat all your other regular meals as normal, are you?

we had ours at 5 or just after - worked really well. No stress, communal cooking, very relaxed. (had eggs benedict for brunch, so no one was hungry earlier).

We had Christmas lunch at 1pm because that’s what we prefer (it really was easy to coordinate). Which, @BertieBotts, does not make me “working class”

I’ve lived in the midlands and north west and have always had Breakfast, Dinner and Tea.

Dinner Ladies only became Lunchtime Supervisors because it was a sexist term

The kids went to a private primary school and they had Lunch but everywhere else it was School Dinners.

On Christmas Day we usually have breakfast around 9am. Christmas Dinner about 1-2pm and Tea about 7-8pm

My parents do similar except an hour later.

Catlover.... For my family, its the only way. Good to hear there are others like us. I think if I did the meal later it would take over my entire day plus we all like the buffet and games time hugely.

In the north Dinner is at lunchtime and tea is in the evening

Wow - so many replies! Thank you.

All clear now! However, while over the years I have started using various British English words and phrases, for some reason I can’t bring myself to call a daytime meal dinner!!

We just had Christmas Dinner the same time as we have any other dinner - about 7pm. Ive never understood having it at 3pm.

We have a huge full Scottish breakfast at about 11am that keeps us going till Christmas dinner at 4pm. Then just graze on leftovers in the evening if peckish.