To think serving a starter with Christmas dinner is unnecessary. And weird.

[Kavalier]

Am hosting DH's family for Xmas dinner for the first time this year. MIL always does a prawn cocktail starter and they will miss a starter if I don't serve one, so I will. I think it's very odd though. AIBU?

I concur Slubber.
NO to Yorkshire Puddings on Christmas Day.

SDTG - I find myself highly disappointed in you. I can only hope that the definitive statement from the highly respected poster which is moi (Squoosh not so much) has persuaded you of the error of your ways.

No starter indeed. It's Jesus' birthday, as Slub correctly reminded us. Do you want to make him cry some more??

I've never had starter with christmas dinner ever.
Mind you (outs self to any of my family) when I was growing up we always had toad in the hole for lunch on Christmas Day.

Christmas dinner with Turkey etc is always in the evening in our house.

No starters, but Turkey, bacon, roast potatoes, Parmesan roast parsnips, celeriac purée, braised red cabbage, sprouts, pig in blankets, stuffing, bread sauce, carrots, cranberry sauce followed by christmas pudding with brandy butter & christmas pudding ice cream, followed by cheese & crackers with port, followed by nuts, followed by chocolates & coffee followed by liqueurs and more chocolate.
No space for starters!

And YY to no yorkshires on Christmas Day.

Unless - just throwing this out there - you stick your prawn cocktail in there and call it a starter? 2 birds/1 stone?

Ahem.

Was there a fourth king who bestowed upon the Christ child a king prawn ring?

I think not.

The Bible rests its case wrt starters.

I confess that in the recent past I have served stuffing and pigs in blankets, but no turkey at all, as nobody was that bothered by it.

Now you are just getting silly SirChenin. Next you'll be suggesting that the blessed turkey is stuffed with prawn coctail.

SDTG speaking as a highly respected poster (you might want to scrub SirChenjin from your list, she's a bit common) if I ever find myself spending Christmas in your house please just plonk a bottle of champagne in front of me and call it a starter. Hopefully that will go some way towards stemming my shock and horror.

Do we eat gold, frankincense or myrrh for Christmas lunch?

No. Which means a prawn ring (or cocktail, or yorkshire pudding) is perfectly acceptable. God forgives all, even the eating of mollusc-based starters

I think you'll find, squoosh, that calling someone common is about as common as one can get.

Don't give her champagne SDTG - it's far too good for her. A can of Smart Price lager will suffice.

Actually, the one starter I would tolerate would be a portions of a big Yorkshire served as a starter with onion gravy, we have ended up having ours with the main course for convenience in recent years.

The things I would eliminate are

Christmas pudding
Brandy butter
Any pudding with booze or ginger in it
Parsnips
Bread sauce
Red cabbage
Any fruit, honey, spice or other extraneous flavourings from the main course, I like a traditional, totally savoury roast dinner.

I rarely eat any pudding at all on Christmas Day, too stuffed from the main, but a bit of ice cream is nice.

Do we eat gold, frankincense or myrrh for Christmas lunch?

You can do, SirChenjin. (It's lovely, but pricey.)

gold, frankincense and myrrh choc bar

Make it two cans of Smart Price lager and I'll be under the table with STDG's Great Uncle Ernie. Let the good times roll!

Is that Great Uncle Ernie I see running for hills Squoosh? Run Ernie, run fast, and don't look back!

Archery - does that actually contain gold, frankincense or myrrh??

Obviously the gold, frankincense and myrrh are symbolic of, um, some sort of roasted meat, roast parsnips and gravy plus condiments

The gifts are meant to be taken literally you know. Apart from the lack of prawn coctail, I think we can safely assume that as that didn't feature then God takes a dim view of such seafood silliness.

If we're going to be all literal about it we should really be eating lamb. Or donkey. Probably.

No starter, there is too much food on Xmas day to have a starter.

I'd like to suggest this as a christmas card.....

When I was a kid, there was an appetizer table at the family do (50+ people) which as an adult was a sneaky way of getting veg into the children. Crudité with dip being the main part, and other items usually involving veg in some way.

Crudité does not scream 'Happy Christmas' to me.

Crudité says 'it's January you fat bastard, step away from the Quality Street'.

Gotta eat parsnips, carrot and parsnip mash is a thing of beauty.

Put me down for a pack Plumping - the official MN Christmas Card, maybe?? Oooh, good idea from the highly respected poster that is SirChenjin, or what??

Prawns aren't molluscs, unless you plan to have moules frites as a starter on Christmas day (wash your mouth out!), they are crustaceans

I'd say an excellent idea from SirChenjin

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut
I confess I don't understand serving a soup made of turkey bits and veg at all. That to me says "eeking out the last bits of food to avoid waste" not "delicious celebration meal".

Well, it is lovely for one thing, but the main reason is because my nan demands likes to have soup for a starter and she's a wee old thing in her 90s so while I'm happy to do that for her, I'm not faffing about from scratch

And, yeah, I did just reignite the whole "cooking from scratch" thing