What do you find shocking at Christmas?

[RosieGuacamosie]

Lighthearted

I have ASD so certain things utterly astound me, I’m sure others will vehemently disagree so feel free to share your own!

1. Starters for Christmas lunch! Surely you’d save room to maximise the main event!
2. Cooking the turkey the day before - are you not worried about food poisoning or it being super dry?
3. Mash on a Christmas dinner, see also sweetcorn

I’m sure I’ll think of more

how stressed i get
every year

do i have enough presents is on my mind.

People eating turkey 🦃. We have wild turkeys who live close to our house and come by every morning for a biscuit. They are lovely creatures. I don’t understand show anyone could eat them 🤢.

Mrs Brown's Boys on tv and the BBC still believing anyone who is sober wants to watch it.

I don’t understand how anyone can describe it as the best meal of the year when I almost guarantee turkey and sprouts don’t make it onto your meal table at any other time. If you liked it that much, why don’t you also eat it as part of a Sunday roast every now and then

@Jacaranda75

People eating turkey 🦃. We have wild turkeys who live close to our house and come by every morning for a biscuit. They are lovely creatures. I don’t understand show anyone could eat them 🤢.

Oh how lovely. Can you take a photo for me to see. They sound amazing.

We don’t have Turkey. Don’t like it.

It shocks me how mumsnetters get so uppity over the 12 days of Christmas thing when others put their trees up late November or early December or take the, down before the New Year.

@MrsLargeEmbodied

how stressed i get every year

do i have enough presents is on my mind.

Same I never really enjoy it until Christmas Eve when everything done and I can relax . I never understand adults getting excited weeks before Christmas. For me it’s just one big stress the run up .

@IDontDrinkTea

I don’t understand how anyone can describe it as the best meal of the year when I almost guarantee turkey and sprouts don’t make it onto your meal table at any other time. If you liked it that much, why don’t you also eat it as part of a Sunday roast every now and then

We eat loads of sprouts. Genuinely love them. The Turkey? It would be too big and we also only eat meat a few times a year. If I had goose fat roasties as often as I like, I would probably be dead by now

It’s so much about the family all gathering together too, we sit for hours

It shocks me that people think it's perfectly acceptable to invite and charge guests for eating Christmas Dinner at their home. I think it's embarrassing and shameless, if you can't afford to host then don't. However, I'd rather spend £75 at a fully hygiene certified restaurant rather than from your condemned kitchen thanks. People pay up because they don't want a row while the extortionatists make a profit. In my culture, if you did this people would think you are skint and think you're a shameless cheeky fucker and tell you that to your face.

autistic household here with one Burton the day. It’s birthday until one, then Christmas. We have a main room and a quiet room,
I personally can’t understand the need to provide a sensational breakfast, you know, Buck’s Fizz, smoked salmon etc. followed by lunch and then the running buffet, why, do you all have caterers? 😮

Have you seen the Michael McIntyre sketch about Christmas? He's talking about how odd it is that people just eat and eat and eat, and also eat things that they don't like just because it's "Christmassy". Eg, turkey, just a drier less tasty version of chicken, eaten on no other day of the year. No one likes sprouts - they're just fart balls and why do we have liquidised bread poured over our dry meat? It's so true - on YouTube in a clip with lots of other bits.

I actually really like sprouts though so eat them on other days too.

Agree with pp about adults buying for one another. We used to do it but always ended up having to return stuff! We do gifts for kids in the family and that’s it. Takes away the stress, waste and enables us to focus on just having fun and enjoying the festive period.

Adult advent calendars that cost ££££ full of perfume, Prosecco etc.

@sHREDDIES19

Agree with pp about adults buying for one another. We used to do it but always ended up having to return stuff! We do gifts for kids in the family and that’s it. Takes away the stress, waste and enables us to focus on just having fun and enjoying the festive period.

I find buying for nieces, nephews and godchildren harder than buying for most of the adults in the family!

As pp have mentioned, people in Supermarkets stacking shopping trolleys so high that they look like something in a cartoon....

BUT

What gets me is that between Christmas and New Year, you see people with equally stuffed trolleys. They must have bought a shedload before Christmas, did they really eat ALL of it? Surely not.

Most of the leftovers must still be edible, so why are you buying half of Tesco again?

People have cauliflower cheese with Christmas dinner! Cheese sauce and gravy? Bleurgh

@Forgetaboutme

That people eat Christmas lunch/dinner so early. I used to always wonder about this when i was young, like why not just wait till dinner time because it is basically like eating dinner. As it goes, we dont eat till about 6 or 7pm because its such a hectic day that the food isnt ready till then lol.

If we waited until the evening we'd be too full with chocolate and other stuff to enjoy it. We usually eat around 2pm and that's usually enough to fill us up for the rest of the day, maybe the odd chocolate or a satsuma later on.

I didn't use to bother with breakfast on Christmas Day either but now that I do a Christmas parkrun I have my usual bowl of porridge before I go out.

I don't like sprouts but the rest of my family do.

And we really like turkey. It's only dry if you overcook it (easy to do if you take any notice of the cooking guidelines, I usually knock about half an hour off the time and haven't had food poisoning yet). And it's nicer in sandwiches etc than chicken, I find cold chicken quite slimy. I purposely order a big turkey so we get several days of leftovers.

That some people don't come from Scotland I mean wtf?

Roast chicken, oatmeal stuffing and thin gravy are the backbone of any reasonable Christmas meal.

Christmas pudding, what's that?

People putting trees up in November sometimes jn October then down again boxing day!

Breakfast with Santa when did that become a thing?

Christmas Eve boxes when they already get a stocking the next day.

Advent calendars with books, fidget toys, beauty products, stuff that people generally get for Christmas anyway!!

The absolute mind crippling stress Christmas causes some people. My mum gets herself into such a panic and has do much to do!!! Daft thing is I host Christmas (have done since I had kids 20 years ago), I think she's so conditioned into feeling that way she can't get past it.
She also hates the fact I don't serve a starter, tries to bring one with her every year!!!

Oh god yes, Christmas Eve boxes! Like Christmas before Christmas 🙄

That my parents used to wrap our presents only after we had gone to bed and finally fallen asleep on Christmas Eve. Apparently, they regularly only finished wrapping presents at 3 am. I asked them why once as an adult, and they just said they were always too busy to do it before then. But it seems designed to make your life harder.

@BertieBotts

Bread sauce is gross. Like someone else has chewed bread and spat it out

Well I was thinking I'd like to try it one day just to see what it was like...but after reading this description I think I'll pass 🤢

😅

@RoyalFamilyFan

That my parents used to wrap our presents only after we had gone to bed and finally fallen asleep on Christmas Eve. Apparently, they regularly only finished wrapping presents at 3 am. I asked them why once as an adult, and they just said they were always too busy to do it before then. But it seems designed to make your life harder.

I just can't imagine doing this and then getting up again a few hours later to unwrap them all. I would have felt ill with tiredness all day.