To hate the way my in-laws do the food part of Christmas?

[TattyDevine]

I know I am being unreasonable about what is a common difference of preferences so try and treat it as a lighthearted thread though feel free to tell me IABU because I am.

First: Disclaimer - I am very glad my Parents in law are alive and well and able to spend Christmas with us. Whilst I hate the way the food is done, I am "grateful" that they do it - well, sort of - we do it every second year and we make a better effort at appearing grateful than they do - we at least thank them for the meal and make appreciative sounds throughout. So if anyone says YABU for being ungrateful, fine, but it kinda goes both ways and yes, I would rather be at home doing my own food, I go there for the sake of my DH and children. That's what Christmas should be about - but it is also about the food for me that we do share together, as I love food and preparing food, but accept that others have different views on how it should be done. Accept - not like! Here goes...

I hate the way they dont get a standard normal turkey with legs and wings, but buy 2 turkey crowns, overcook them, having ripped the skin off when they are still raw, discarding it when they know I like it, and serve up mountains of shreds of overcooked sawdusty breast and nothing else simply because they prefer breast.

I hate the way they cook the brussels sprouts the night before (for at least half an hour - in fact, I think they might have put them on already!) and then reheat them in the microwave 5 minutes before the meal is served. They are a deep khaki green colour and smell like hangover farts.

I hate the way the gravy is watery and tastes more like marmite than anything else - due, mainly, to its high marmite content

I hate the way all the other vegetables are burnt to a crisp and then placed on a heated trolley thing 2 hours before the meal is served to stay warm, and I hate the way they turn to cardboard.

I hate the way the smoke alarm goes off every single time, about 30 minutes before they serve up. Get an oven timer. The smoke alarm is supposed to alert you to dangerously high levels of smoke. That's that grey stuff that is billowing out of the oven and making all our eyes stream, by the way.

I hate the way the only drink they put out is Asti Spumante even though we bring champagne and decent Sav Blanc etc which they hide away then hand back to us when we leave because they "dont drink". They dont - but if they dont drink, why not just let us drink what we want to drink? We do ask them for the stuff we bought but then they turn around and say "but we've already opened the Asti!". These days we try and time it so DH takes charge of the "drinks situation" quite a while before dinner is served (hell, by midday I'm gagging for something, ANYTHING) before anything else gets opened and he holds it back now and puts it outside so its cold, but we had to politey refuse the Asti completely one year so it got tipped down the sink to get to that stage as they are pretty stubborn...

I hate the way they hold back the pudding and make us eat biscuits instead after the lunch bit, because "everyone is too full for pudding", when in fact we are not too full for pudding, because we did not overeat, and see no real benefit in consuming the same amount of bulk and calories in biscuits only to eat pudding later when we are, in fact, not hungry.

I hate the way it is assumed that custard does not go lumpy if you dont stir it just because you have cooked it in a bain-marie. It does. You have to stir it to just under the boil whatever you cook it in. And is there anything wrong with a bit of brandy butter? Just because you dont like it? Why not put out the little pot of it we brought with us? It wont kill you from the other end of the table. Hell, let us get it, rather than fobbing us off with "cant' find it in the fridge" (its in the DOOOOOORRRRRR!)

Okay, that's it for me, unless I think of anything eles. I know its mean, but better out than in - I dont want to rant to my own mother or DH about it, because its mean and bitchy, but they are not on t'internet, and it feels good, gets it out of my system and I can turn up and be charming on the day. That's not such a bad thing, is it?

What would you change about the way your parents or parents in law prepare and serve Christmas Dinner?

could even roast potatoes in their skins

The sensible thing is to have Christmas at home and invite them.

YANBU at all! To me, it sounds very passive-aggressive, what they are doing. I'm sure they are lovely people and don't realize, but insisting on you eating biscuits you don't want/ refusing to let you open your own wine is rather a silent criticism of what you do.

My DH's religion means that he's fasting from meat, dairy and alcohol on Christmas day, and a bit of me feels sad that I can't really do a proper Christmas dinner then - but when I read these stories it cheers me right up!

Had a hilarious Christmas dinner at my sister's one year. She had demanded that my mother come and cook 'proper' Christmas dinner the way my mother does it. Yet she was living with a partner who is Italian, passionate about food, and saw the kitchen very much as HIS domain and wasn't about to let anyone else take over. They were like cats, hissing and spitting round each other.

Highly entertaining except that they got in each other's way so much dinner was about two hours late...

pisces - the sensible thing IMO is to have Christmas at home and not invite them - see them another day when there is no prescribed formula for the activites or food that you must have

YANBU!!

my mil dishes up meals like we're all still 5. 'would you like some sprouts bamboo? potatos? stuffing?!!!'

Raaaaaagh! let me dish up my own food and i'd like more than a mouse piss of gravy too, if thats alright. it's just bloody bisto, you can make more if we run out.

DP is Swedish he finds it highly amusing how the Brits get themselves in such a tizz about chrismtas.

My mum works herself up into a state of complete hysteria. It starts about mid November and by the day itself she is fit to spontaneously combust.

I do remember staying with MIL (not at Christmas particularly) and being asked at breakfast how many potatoes I was going to want at dinner time so she could peel the right amount.

YAdeffoNBU! Could forgive crap cooking, it's not everyone's forte I guess, but making you drink Asti instead of champers? WTF?? And the infant formula thing would have had me throwing PIL through a glass door.

This thread is aking me realise how lucky I am to have a MIL who is actually a great cook and hostess, her propensity to flirt inappropriately with DH notwithstanding (she's his stepmum, we don't live in Alabama. Actually no, it is still weird...)

And Avocadoes - try blowing raspberries all over your food when issues-laden FIL tries to help himself - lil bro and I used to do when we were kids, it's very effective.

Maybe they would rather you didn't come and are too to say so so have been unwelcoming.

My mum always serves christmas pud with custard (or ice cream). DH's family always have brandy butter (which I have come to love). I am pretty sure my mum hears requests for brandy butter or offers to make or bring brandy butter as "we are snobs" and "we look down at you with your peasant cooking and the way you deprived your children when they were growing up" and reacts accordingly (which has some similarity to the way Tatty's in-laws act, but not as extreme). It is like she is trying to put us in our place and knock the "snobbery" out of us.

For christmas dinner my personal favourite is the "roast" potatoes made in the deep fat fryer. We always eat them and make no negative comment. When I make roasties the, erm, normal way, again it is like an insult to her.

She is the same about other things. We only have one TV at home, whereas my parents have one in pretty much every room. She is always telling us to buy us another TV (and has even offered to buy one for the kids' room), and however diplomatically we explain our reasoning, she seems to take it as a personal insult (eg that we think she brought her kids - including me! - up badly by having lots of TVs).

She is lovely in other ways but is very quick to perceive snobbery or a personal insult just out of doing something differently.

Roasties made in the deep fat fryer sounds amazing ttm - I assume they are par-boiled first?

That's very true, timetomove. It probably does feel to the MIL that she's thinking it's snobbery.

I think it may be a generational thing? I swear my MIL is still working from the same turkey from the last 4 years (everyone is offered a tiny sliver and I am yet to witness an actual turkey in the kitchen on Christmas day so I'm assuming she bought a crown and portioned it for use and has stored it in the freezer.

To everyone's delight she has bought a hostess trolley this year so that she can cook the meal before everyone arrives and not have to worry - luckily she doesn't seem to worry about dry overcooked veg either so a win win situation.

Not much of a departure from last year really when all of the veg got 'prepped' mid November and stored in the freezer until Christmas day. Last year the veg was wet and spongy, this year dry and hard. Variety is the spice of life.

And the only drink served is hock.

Good times. I'm particularly looking forward again to the iceland prawn ring buffet style effort. It would appear that quantity should always win above quality.

I shouldn't really critcise - got flamed on a thread I started on this topic earlier today...

This is why we are staying at home this year after 8 years of alternating between paretns and in laws. Not inviting anyone at all and are going to have slow cooked pork shoulder

yum

Yes, par boiled then deep fried. Like big fat round chips.

We DO NOT go away for Christmas or Boxing Day, ever, and thats that. So for us these problems do not arise.

OP YANBU, christmas is very important to me and I like it just as I like it. If people want to see dc they can come to us. Luckily the grandparents are relatively young, in their fifties and early sixties respectively.

Oh and I usually make 7 hour lamb for Christmas Dinner and it is wonderful.

Christmas is an exercise in self-control and compromise. You can only avoid that by closeting yourself at home and seeing nobody at jolly Xmas. We try to spend Christmas as a nuclear family only as much as possible, hardly ever manage it and secretly yearn to be in a Muslim country over the whole Xmas period.

seven hour lamb sounds good...although my mum would want to cook it for 10.

Whose recipe is that Shimmery?

YANBU.

I hate the way my MIL cooks Christmas dinner. Dry turkey, soggy veg, roast potatoes rationed to two each and absoloutely no more, white sauce on the pudding.... Bleugh!

Even more I hate Christmas tea, which is more dry turkey with bread and butter and pickles and a bowl of tomatoes. Followed by trifle which they know the DC hate but are still suprised every year when they don't eat it.

I get my revenge by having them over every other year and cooking it how I like it, ie how they don't. It preserves my sanity.

I feel fortunate that my ex inlaws where good at cooking, christams wasn't awlays the same style but still good food and good wine was served and the aunt did fabulous roast pots and mash - I had never had mah with roast before.

7 Hour Lamb, this is the recipe I use and it is unbelievably delicious.

I am very lucky. my MIL is a terrible cook, but importantly, she knows this, and exists mainly off the various wares of the M&S food hall.

I therefore cook every Christmas, and get to do things just how I like, without a fight. MIL brings the booze .

The last time we had Xmas at my MILs she put all the food for 6 people on one serving platter. That is turkey, veg, stuffing, the lot.

I thought she was joking, asked her where is the rest of it?

No, that was really all she had cooked.

We were starving at the end of the meal (DH and I, and two hungry DCs) , I suggested we should all go out for a kebab!

I wouldn't have minded so much, but I had ordered and paid for all the food for the whole Xmas week from Tesco and had it delivered to her house. Nice big turkey, loads of veg, pudding - about £200 worth of food !

Don't know what happened to it all - maybe she sold it?

Have vowed that is the last time. We always invite her over to ours now - and she always complains I cook too much food!