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 like the meal to stretch out, and last, and also have a sense of difference from the norm, all these things help to mark it out as special, such as dressing up.

I also like to open presents before or after each course....

BTW my husband gobbles food down to it also makes it longer for us all to sit there. rather than huge prep then all gone in 60 seconds, wham bam, thats it over and done

can i ask, are all your pigs in blankets sausages wrapped in bacon?

We don't have mince pies of Christmas pudding either on Christmas day. No one likes Christmas pudding, and DS1 and I have usually had enough of mince pies by Christmas Day (DH and DS2 don't like them).

I am firmly of the opinion that you should serve what people like, rather than some silly idea about what is traditional. I'm not bothering to cook sprouts for me to eat a couple and everyone else to ignore them. And I'm not forcing anyone to eat sprouts on Christmas day either.

Dpil serve starter (usually fish or cured meats) then soup, then main course, then dessert, then cheese, then coffee & petits fours. I generally give up before dessert.

We have plenty of sausages wrapped in bacon and cheese wrapped in bacon too for good measure. In fact, I suspect the stuff wrapped in bacon and the Yorkshire puddings are the highlights of the meal for DH and the kids.

The most U OP in a long time

Xmas dinner is as follows: smoked salmon, cream cheese and blinis and a glass of champagne; prawn cocktail, soup or pate on toast; Xmas dinner; pudding (trifle or Xmas pudding).

Prawn cocktail is so easy. Buy pots of prawn cocktail and bags of lettuce from M&S, divvy up in glasses and serve. I always do starters (if at home) whilst mum concentrates on the main. Even a child could make it.

But I do agree that it would be rude of your in laws to comment if you decide against starters.

Babycham and Matchmakers while I cook the Christmas lunch is my 'starter' (ghastly word). Only time of the year that I gave either, but it wouldn't feel like Christmas otherwise. As for prawn cocktail? Only if I want seafood-averse DH to get me divorce papers for Christmas

but is that it really? just a sausage wrapped in bacon? what's so good about them? do you not eat bacon and sausages on normal days for breakfast? or are they different types of sausage/bacon?

I love trifle. Ginger trifle sounds great.
Yorkshires with christmas lunch?

They're usually chipolatas sausages wrapped in bacon. Still, they're always the most popular thing on the table among my lot. DH also loves having cheese wrapped in bacon, which is a slightly odd thing to cover in gravy if you give it any thought.

Bacon is like cheese. There is very little food that isn't dramatically improved by its presence.

Pigs in blankets are my favourite too.

We grew up with the very retro (and to my mind, a little frugal) slice of melon or half a grapefruit as our Christmas dinner starter. I can't see the point myself, I'd rather save the space for an extra portion of Christmas pudding. I bloody love Christmas pudding (has to be with double cream).

Thank-you, MrsKoala - that trifle sounds delicious!

Pigs in blankets are probably the best bit, MrsKoala I very rarely have a cooked breakfast, so I don't have them regularly on "normal days" much though I'd love to. Especially yummy when they've been roasted in all the turkey juices...mmmmm...

Last year when DH went skiing for a week without me, I bought a pack of frozen pigs in blankets and ate them with my dinner for several nights in a row.

Half a grapefruit before a roast dinner is a horrible prospect.

I make a version of PIB. I don't do them for xmas dinner tho, just with roast chicken/turkey (which we don't have at xmas).

I mix sausage meat, finely chopped onion, fresh or dried sage, lots of pepper, breadcrumbs (and sometimes a grated apple) then fashion into fat meatballs and wrap in streaky bacon and roast. People seem to rave about them. I once took them to a thanksgiving dinner and it got embarrassing. I wished i hadn't after a while. I just don't see the big enjoyment in them.

I once made my own blinis, to serve with smoked salmon and sour cream. They were very tasty, but as I made blinis on Christmas Day, in addition to doing lunch, and the full roast dinner, in a small house with three small children, out of their minds on excitement and chocolate, and the in-laws underfoot, I nearly lost my (admittedly tenuous) grip on my sanity!

My mum used to make stuffing balls with sausage and bacon with (soaked)breadcrumbs onion and herbs and an egg to bind.

Everyone preferred it to the turkey.

Cheese, bacon and gravy doesn't sound odd to me. I'm a chips, cheese and gravy kind of woman though, so make of that what you will.

We never did starters for Christmas dinner growing up, although my SIL did. Now we do our own Christmas, we have lots of courses throughout the day and treat it as pretty much an all day feast. We eat our starters early, so as to save room for main course around 2ish. By the time we've done dessert, and later the cheese comes out, it's near enough time for the meat to come back out of the fridge to make sandwiches with! I prep as much as I can ahead of time so as to spend as little time cooking as possible. It also means we have enough leftovers to survive on for a few days

We don't like prawn cocktail though, so usually have melon, soup or both.

We live fairly frugally, and eat quite cheaply for most of the year, so it feels good to really pig out for a day. It's a celebration, even if you don't do the religious side, and to me, that means feasting.

Oh, and I don't like yorkshire puds, so I don't make them. Although I am tempted to try just because I'm curious. We'll see if there's freezer space.

No starter here- have to make room for the port and stilton at the end of the meal.

Xmas Day morning for me is:

8.30am: Peer at light coming through crack in curtains. Pull duvet over head.
9am: Stumble out of bed. Grope for dressing gown on floor. Get frustrated and grumpy because it's half inside out.
9.03am: Wee. Peer at last night's make up in mirror. Decide it will be okay just to rub fingers under eyes for the moment.
9.07am: DH hands me glass of champagne to celebrate my surviving the night.

It goes on like this. On a good day, if people have been very generous, we will eat caviar and blinis and foie gras and toast mid morning. If people have been tight bastards we'll only eat Balik smoked salmon and Poilane bread .

Sometimes I even get dressed - which means washing and putting on jogging pants and a top.

We'll eat our main meal, usually roast pork or chicken, about 4pm. More wine. Used to have Xmas pudding but in recent years DH likes to make his Patented Tarte Tatin. Sometimes it goes wrong resulting in much swearing and me saying, genuinely: 'It's lovely, darling. Can you open that Sauternes now?'.

We'll always watch a Christmassy DVD like Life of Brian, Trading Places or The Omen and then pass out at about 10.30pm.

Anyway, OP, it's not only traditional to have a starter on Xmas Day, it's a vital injection of protein and sugar and I couldn't get through the day without it.

It wasn't great, if I'm honest, Calamitous. I didn't eat grapefruit for years after leaving home- turns out it's quite nice when you don't have it as a weird starter!