to be hunting for a microwaveable turkey dinner for DD

[nessus]

Your honour(s),

Although DD(12) is an unrepentant carnivore, I plead to be excused from the botheration that is xmas dinner assemblage.

The defence offers up that I am a veggie that hardly eats at the best of time. We are a 2 person household. I paid for DD to have xmas dinner at school before breaking up. I have offered to drive her to her dad's for xmas dinner and spend the day after she opens her pressies at home with me. We are spending 27-29th with family where she will have a zillion post xmas turkey honouring dinners. I am a lazy bint. I will gag if I touch raw meat (it's bad enough making meat containing pack lunches).

As a concession, I am willing to go hunting for a microwave meal after I drop her off to guitar lesson in a few minutes. Yes, I am the saddo that intends to shout surprise as I offer up a ready meal to my child on xmas day...Though I may be judged harshly by the jury, I ask that counsel refrains from calling SS upon sentence being passed.

I think you're being unreasonable not putting in the effort for your daughter on Christmas Day. She is 12!

If you are in Essex she can come to mine, while you stay at home and eat shitty muesli.

Poor kid.

Ive got to be honest, doesnt sound like you have a great attitude to food. Unless you have a medical condition that prevents you eating which in that case i apologise for my rapid judgement. Vegetarianism is not an excuse to stop eating. Christmas dinner can be no more than a sunday roast, shove some potatoes in the oven, some veg in the steamer, and buy your dd one of those little meat portions in a disposable tray. Then for gods sake sit and eat a meal together and enjoy a nice chat. You run the risk of her picking up your food issues if you refuse to eat to the degree you will have no more than a bowl of cereal all christmas day.

So she'll be eating alone? Thats worse than feeding her a microwave dinner. Which is pretty bloody sad on christmas day.
If you can't be bothered to make an effort for your child on that day above all, doesn't she have another parent she can go to? Or grandparents even? Anyone who would make a bit of effort.....

Yay for Essex.

Anyway, OP, you know those ready meals taste like shit right, just get a crown that you shove in the oven, i have on in my freezer calling me right now.

What about aunt Bessie potatoes and Yorkshire puddings, a bag of steamed veg or those trays of veg you steam in microwave with the herb butter. A jar of cranberry sauce, your dd can cook a turkey leg and all you then have to do is boil a kettle fir some bisto. Literally all just shove in oven /microwave job. Surely you can manage that???

Just got back from doing the guitar lesson run so forgive my silence. In the spirit of MN multi-tasking I rushed about picking up xmas stocking bits instead of just sitting in car for half an hour. Anyhoo, lots of input in my absence which I have speedily caught up with.

I understand that starting an AIBU will command roses as well as stones being offered so I am humble in replying to both camps. I love the idea of picking up a ready prepared meat bit on the side and rustling up accompaniments that I also can partake of. I make a mean mashed swede and who doesn't love a yorkshire pudding.

I don't want to come all defensive so I won't call culture to bear on this, however it is from my perspective worth considering. Though I have lived in the UK long enough to adapt to these seasonal customs, even if I don't entirely adopt them, I genuinely do not think xmas day any more special than any other day of the year. Nor do I think my birthday special either. I might be odd in this respect. However DD enjoys the 'specialness' of xmas and I encourage this.

Though I work bloody hard I can be unbelievably lazy in many respects. But not when it comes to parenting. And I can be unthinking, but I am not mean by nature so I disagree that my resistance is indicative of a mean streak.

I have a relatively low appetite but do eat as and when hunger grabs hold of me, and can confidently reassure the concerned that I do not have an eating disorder. And I LOVE cereal. No shame in that. I am currently trying to find a dairy substitute but that is another thread entirely.

I am a stonking cook if I may say so myself and cook up a range of meals for DD and I but like many I do often rotate the old faves on the menu a little too frequently. For example, the mere mention of risotto has DD begging for noodles.

I never knew the Chinese was open on xmas day...we LOVE Chinese food equally so that might be an alternative I offer up. But tbh I am already sold on getting a nice bit of white meat for her with me doing the rest. Unless I go by a M&S tomorrow that is. I jest!

Food or no food, I am just thankful that there is a joyful atmosphere in the home right now, which with an hormonal pre-teen is not always guaranteed!

Gotta go as DD has gone up to her room and I have an opportunity to sneak xmas stocking fillers in from car boot undetected

P.s Jacket potato with chilli corn carne for dinner tonight as I am using up the rest of the quorn mince from last night's spag bog...

It's not all about you OP.

OP has said she is happy to cook everything but meat. She's also offered to take her to her dad's for Xmas dinner. She has said she will eat veg along with her daughter.

Is eating freshly cooked meat really that essential at Xmas? I am not from this country and have had many different kinds of meals at Xmas. I don't remember caring that much. Perhaps it is different here but even so will OP's dd not find other things about the day special, even if the food is not up to much?

no she didn't, she said she would muesli if and when she got hungry, which means she had no intention of sitting down and eating with her child.

Your posts read "me me me me" OP.

Mate, you took that well. I get that if you dont see christmas as anything special then it can be hard to see the need to make a fuss. You could always ask your dd if she would like a christmas meal, and see what she says. And good luck with food shopping tomorrow if she says yes, rather you than me!

I have no idea, but I love your posting style, and you sound like a lovely mum to me.

I forgot to answer that we are usually out of the country for xmas. Somewhere hot and exotic is de rigeur. But alas beautiful new house has sucked away all my spare pennies!

I agree with everyone else, I feel sorry for your DD.

My DH is away this Christmas. It doesn't feel like Christmas, the kids say it a million times a days, but I am trying my hardest to make it Christmas. I don't feel like doing a Christmas dinner, but I am doing it because the kids love it. I don't have a big appetite, but it isn't about me. I'll eat what I want, they'll have theirs and I will be happy that there will be leftovers and I can have a bit of a rest for the next couple of days.

DH asked me in a really sad voice last night if I'd do him a Christmas dinner when he gets back. Of course I bloody will!

Whether Xmas is about the food or not, honestly to leave a 12 yr old sat on her own with a ready meal is extremely mean and selfish. How intelligent do you have to be to realise that you could just make a toast and get the dd to do the meat? Really my dd would have thought if that. She's admitted she's lazy so she just didn't want to cook basically. And have some "scrummy muesli" herald "if" she got hungry. So no she wasn't going to sit down with her dd. So no food and no "joyful" memories being made here. And these memories are what kids take through life and bring with them to their families.

A roast

You sound great to me OP.
Sometimes our lives aren't as conventional as we would like, I know mine isn't.
I'm also single parent to a 12yr old DD.
You'll have a lovely day I'm sure.
Merry Christmas

I am a veggy that hardly eats
I paid for DD to have Xmas dinner at school
I have offered to drive her to her dad's
I am a lazy bint
I will gag
I rushed about picking up Xmas stocking bits
I LOVE cereal
I am a stonking cook

You hardly mention your Dd, she sounds like an after thought.

So you don't care about Chritmas but it's really important to your daughter?

And despite knowing Christmas Day is important to your daughter you can't be bothered to make an effort to provide a nice meal for you both to share?

And you really think that a school dinner and other people's left overs make up for the fact you can't be bothered?

When you offered to drive your daughter to her dad's home did you 'sell' it as an opportunity to spend a special day with him. Or as a way to off load her so you don't have to bother?

At 12 your daughter is still a child, I feel sorry for her.

Why not buy a portion of stuffed turkey & ham from butchers?

And deal with your own issues in the new year.

lovely update post OP.

lovely update post OP.

My mum is a veggie and always cooked us meat. Sorry she is only 12 you can't be arsed to cook her a christmas dinner - YABU. Get a small chicken or turkey leg and cook it for her.

I dont think the op sounds mean and selfish. Maybe a tad disorganised , but no harm in being a scatterbrain. She's given her kid options to go elsewhere but she said no, so obviously her dd has decided being with her mum is more important than crispy roast potatoes and stuffing. She cant be all that rubbish a mum can she.
Not everyone has the deep emotional attachment to christmas dinner than those of us who grew up with it. I find the idea of some kid sitting alone with a ready meal christmas day almost verging on NSPCC advert worthy, but thats because of the emotional importance I have put on it. I accept other people dont feel the same if to them its always been 'just another day'.

posted too quick. If i were you, i would hide this thread now. Things like this have a tendency to turn nasty and if you are happy and feeling festive, just leave it at that. Sounds like a nice mini feast you will be preparing. Certainly up my street. No, it is not a four course extravaganza, but to be honest, I read some of the xmas menus being prepared on mumsnet, and I genuinely wonder about the size of some of these people. My family are all very slender and we eat so modestly compared with some mumsnetters!