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...

Do other countries have these discussions about naming meals, or is it U.K. specific?

Dinner is lunch surely? I’m from Aberdeen - we always called it dinner at lunch (eg dinner ladies, dinner tickets, dinner trays!), tea at evening meal, supper before bed !

we used to have it at 3 but it has got later and later, no matter, there are other things to do - as above a special breakfast, a special lunch.
bucksfizz at some point
past experience has taught me not to drink until the evening,, but others tend to

@merrymouse

Do other countries have these discussions about naming meals, or is it U.K. specific?

I don't even think people have these discussions in real life in the UK.

Even after so many days of having it explained that dinner/lunch is a regional thing and both are perfectly valid terms, the "I'm from Little Wapping In the Hollow and we call it X so X must be the right term" comments plus the sweeping (and wrong) generalisations are still coming thick and fast...

• Dinner is the evening meal in the UK. It has not been the name for the mid-day meal for centuries Lol, what are dinner ladies at school?what is school dinners?what meal does that denote then? Dinner is an early afternoon meal*

They're called lunch staff in our school and school lunch.

It's always lunch for us midday at home too but interestingly my husband has a different take on the evening meal. I call it supper when it's a fairly light meal, like omelette and salad for example, and dinner when it's something bigger like a casserole, or Sunday roast beef (which we have in the evening) and my husband calls all evening meals supper unless it's more formal, using the nicest China, and if there are guests.

dinner lady
however I dont have dinner,
lunch at lunch time,
supper is the evening meal

"Do other countries have these discussions about naming meals, or is it U.K. specific?"

The French of France and the French of Belgium have a similar difference with the use of diner (sorry, can't do the circumflex) where it means the evening meal in France, but lunch in Belgium and it causes confusion sometimes. I think there's something similar in Canadian French.

@Gwenhwyfar Also petit déjeuner is déjeuner in Belgium.

OP

If you want to become really confused try buying a small piece of soft bread, depending where you are in England it can be a:

bap
barm cake
barm
bread cake
cob (in some places a cob is crusty bread and in others it is soft bread, crusty is called a crusty cob)
teacake (in some parts this has currents, in others it only has currents if it is a current tea cake)
bread roll
batch
breakfast roll (someone from Scotland will be along soon to explain the difference between a proper Scottish morning roll and those sold in England)

Once you have managed to buy your bread, cut it, butter it and add some ham and cheese it may be a sandwich (but in the south of England this seems to be only sliced bread) or a butty.

Unless you are going to take it wo work to eat on a meal break when it might be bait, packing up or a packed lunch, and it is NEVER a packed dinner.

On a non-Christmas day, I have lunch at midday and tea in the evening (obvs. very working class according to pps). Dinner is a very late tea reserved for being on holiday in a Gite or on Christmas day.

I’ve been told that lunch is actually posh because only posh people had luncheon. And you have dinner in the middle of the day at school, a la school dinners / dinner ladies.

Whether you call it 'Dinner' or 'Tea' (evening meal) to some people signifies your class so it is a contentious subject.