Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think this is NOT conversation for dinner?

44 replies

OhFraktiousTree · 24/12/2011 20:15

What is it about Christmas that brings out the worst in people around a table?!

Tonight the family, in between bickering over the last roast potato and deciding when to leave for midnight mass, discussed enemas. Specifically - clay based ones.

Please tell me this isn't just my family! I dread to think what we'll be talking about tomorrow

OP posts:
Greythorne · 24/12/2011 20:19

My DH's cousin once told us in detail about a suppository she took whilst in labour.

TidyDancer · 24/12/2011 20:19

When my brother bought his most recent (lovely, might I add) girlfriend to meet the family, she and my mum spent the whole afternoon (including lunch) happily discussing decomposition of human remains. DBro and I sat there exchanging 'is this actually happening?!' looks the whole time.

So, no. It's not just your family. We're just as weird. Xmas Grin

Greythorne · 24/12/2011 20:19

Over Christmas Eve dinner.

meditrina · 24/12/2011 20:24

DSis and her post-operative infection was fine for the blood relatives round the table, but the various married-ins and new boyfriends went a bit green!

iliketea · 24/12/2011 20:35

Do you have a family of nurses? - poo etc is regular conversation amongst my friends.

ClutchingAtMyPearls · 24/12/2011 20:40

Nurses seem to love poo and bowels and anything connected with what goes in and how it comes out. I don't know why, but they do!

Original poster
OhFraktiousTree · 24/12/2011 21:28

No nurses or any medical types. Just odd Hmm

OP posts:
FredFredGeorge · 24/12/2011 22:10

The Chef WBU for cooking insufficient roast potatoes, you were lucky someone managed to pick a topic to distract everyone before they decided to lynch the cook.

ShengdanRoad · 25/12/2011 00:29

My dad started telling us about his friend Paul's colonectomy at dinner tonight...

PoppaRob · 25/12/2011 00:51

I have an 89 year old mother and a 2 1/2 year old GD so unfortunately faeces is a common topic of conversation. Xmas Hmm

smoggii · 25/12/2011 06:48

When i introduced my parents to his they spent about half an hour discussing public loos. It started with a simple question about the journey down and a problematic services toilet and went on to a tour of loos used around the world.

debka · 25/12/2011 06:50

What is a clay based enema?

Anniegetyourgun · 25/12/2011 10:13

In a restaurant my sister insisted on giving a loud, detailed account of a friend's daughter's diabetic emergency, and how badly the hospital handled it. Another diner got up and took his plate over to the very far side of the room. We were eating noodles and it was all about veins and things... (I've never even met the person she was talking about either, so beats me why she felt I needed to know.)

FryingNemo · 25/12/2011 10:17

We discussed vomit yesterday and food additives and how you mechanically recover meat from cattle carcasses.

TiggyD · 25/12/2011 12:08

I'm a nursery nurse. Meal conversation between NNs often turn to poo, wee and vomit. Often in unusual places.

WorkingClassMum · 25/12/2011 12:13

If you can't discuss enemas with family, then who can you discuss them with?

Today we discussed my nephew's cyst which required surgery on Wednesday to drain. The cyst and the operation meant my nephew cannot sit down ATM...

DancesWithWolves · 25/12/2011 12:17

Makes me glad it is just three of us for Christmas Dinner Xmas Grin

Lara2 · 25/12/2011 12:59

Dad's a GP, Mum's a nurse - enemas sound pretty mild to me! DH used to go very green, but after 22 years he's got used to it!! Xmas Grin

TheMonster · 25/12/2011 13:02

We often talk about poo at the Xmas table. It happens almost every year.

Alliwantisaroomsomewhere · 25/12/2011 15:55

DS was singing about farts at our Christmas lunch table today.

OnemorningXmasCockMonkey · 25/12/2011 16:51

LOL at AllIwant

My mum used to work in a nursing home. Once we were eating liver, and she started telling me about a client's prolapse.

I didn't eat liver for about five years after that.

willselfless · 25/12/2011 17:39

Over lunch once, an elderly great aunt tried to tell me and my DM about her first lesbian experience. In graphic detail.

LynetteScavo · 25/12/2011 19:27

I was once asked how many stitches I'd had after delivering DS1. The questioners wife hung her head in shame. I looked him in they eye and replied "two". He isn't even close family. And I still don't know quite why he require this information.

A1980 · 25/12/2011 21:10

One of my best friends is a nurse. Conversartions such as that over dinner no longer surprise me!

Anna1976 · 28/12/2011 08:04

it can be quite hard to get yourself into the correct setting re conversation. At work, among some friends, in my family, absolutely anything is fair game (biohazard bag, anyone?).

Among some other friends, and DP's family, many topics are completely unacceptably impolite. I frequently generate polite glances among other guests, across the dinner table chez DP's family. I have largely given up trying, since i will never get anything right with them.