To not want to be ravenously hungry at Christmas?

[Bubbinsmakesthree]

Staying with DH's family who are a bit weird about food.

We had a one-course Christmas lunch yesterday about 3pm, after which everyone declared themselves too stuffed to contemplate pudding.

It is now 11:30am the next morning and not a mince pie crumb, not a chocolate matchstick has been available for consumption since. There has been some vague talk about breakfast which has been on-going for hours with nothing whatsoever being done about it.

I am so hungry right now I am shaking.

To make matters worse we've just watched Bake Off like some form of torture.

I dont know why the op keeps going back.She knows what they are like.I would make it my last year for going.

They are not nice people and as someone upthread said,are you really wanted there?

Plus your dp wasnt well,why didnt you just stay home.?

My ex-BF family were like this. I used to stock up on chocolate bars, cereal bars and biscuits etc and sneak off to eat on every so often on the pretence of going to the bathroom etc.

Can't stand the "oh so stuffed" brigade after only a few roast potatoes and slivers of meat.

Also the "nobody wants pudding, do they?" brigade. YES I bloody well do!

I dont know why the op keeps going back

Because if Christmas is about one thing more than it is about groaning chessboards and bottomless tubs of Quality Street, it is about family!

I honestly don't understand why it's so hard for people to understand that despite the fact they have habits which drive us slightly nuts, we might genuinely like these people and want to spend time with them?

I have realised the massive difference in appetites and food consumption between my family and dh family this Christmas. My mum always has shed loads of lovely food, but gives quite small portions out. Dh family have no snack foods/boxes of chocolates but at meal times have massive portions, so probably don't need snacks through out the evening. However, I had both my parents and inlaws for Christmas dinner and mum was in charge of dishing up starters, the portions were tiny and she left loads of it left in the fridge. I'm all for leftovers, but this was riducous.
We are staying at the inlaws tonight and I have bought a bag of snacks to see us through till the morning. Nuts, Christmas cake, quality street, posh chocs I was given. I'm going to enjoy this evening.

I rarely eat breakfast until later morning, if at all, but I wouldn't expect my guests to wait and would either make them something or there's always the open invitation to 'help yourself to anything you fancy' - anyone that comes here is more than happy to look in the fridge and cupboards or to ask what there is. I would hate the thought of someone being hungry - I expect everyone to tuck in to whatever they want whenever they want it, and they do - often asking if I want anything while they are there. Friends and family should be comfortable enough to make themselves at home. Even my better half's business partner would thing nothing of, for instance, frying himself a couple of eggs to go with leftover turkey, gammon, pigs in blankets, stuffing balls etc. Why invite guests and then starve them or be stingy if there's plenty available?

Because if Christmas is about one thing more than it is about groaning chessboards and bottomless tubs of Quality Street, it is about family!Can you not see the irony in that statement.Look you are complaining her about being weak wiht the hunger.And all people have said is bring food or dont go.It as simple as that really.

Being invited to eat "anything you fancy" is a poisoned chalice.

Show me things that I can definitely eat and it won't mess up your plans.

I don't want to have to try to GUESS what is intended for tomorrow's lunch.

BUY WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HAD JUST SAID YOU WERE GOING TO MAKE SOME BREAKFAST??

They hadn't fed you for 21 hours??? That's shockingly rude.

We always take emergency supplies to the inlaws. They have nothing but tons of condensed milk and tinned peaches in the cupboard and a few mouldy apples out. She does occasionally cook but gets a ready cooked chicken from Morrisons, a couple of small potatoes and a spoonful of veg. She doesn't like "anything sweet" and he doesn't like cheese so there is rarely any dessert. Luckily there is a Tesco round the corner so we nip round to get petrol and stock up. When ds2 was diagnosed with ASD she said we shouldn't keep comforting eating as a response as we were putting on weight. TBH at that point putting on weight was the least of my worries

My MIL is like this, it is hard to explain how you get manipulated into feeling bad for being normally hungry at appropriate times. I have had to over a few years first retrain dh then MIL with him on side (will NOT do secret eating, will NOT enable/apologise or otherwise normalise clearly pathological food behaviour and WILL call out rudeness about weight/fatism/general snidyness) and its better now, but I still feel like we often eat 'because Kerala wants something' with much raised eyebrow. Easier with kids/pregnant to stand my ground and be rude and insist that 4pm is not reasonable for lunch with no breakfast.

My PiL are equally as measured about food. Also, MiL can not get a meal on the table vaguely at a meal time. On one memorable occasion, when the dc were about 1 and 4, she checked with me that they'd like fish fingers and chips for their tea. I confirmed this, and that they normally eat at 5pm. At 5.30 she wrote to make it - I hadn't realised she was starting from scratch! Literally cod fillets and raw potatoes! The children finally got to eat at 8pm. They'd had their baths and got their PJs on.

Thing is in PiLs house
1- no one goes in the kitchen except MiL and people clearing up.
2- no food is left out- no crisps, fruit etc for grazing/nibbling.
3- the same meals are served on the same days every week. If we are visiting, they double the quantities of food they buy for each meal affected. Thing is, two sedentary 75 years olds eat considerably less than 2 active 40 something's plus 2 dc (now both primary school age).
4- they live in the middle of nowhere. Nearest shop around 10 miles away.

We now take snacks, lots and lots of snacks. Combined with their refusal to get a spare bed, packing to go there is like preparing for a trip up Everest. Little wonder I refuse to go anymore.

Oh and they are loaded. No mortgage, 2 civil service pensions. In relation to something completely different, FiL recently told me he had "pots of money that I'll never spend".

I think this whole 'no food in the house' thing is generational. Older people used to food shop every day (no long term storage, local shops rather than supermarkets) and are still in that mentality but without the actual shopping every day (as most of the little shops closed years ago). Older people tend to have smaller appetites too.

DM was a shop every day person and as such not a slice of toast could be consumed 'off plan' as there wouldn't be enough for sandwiches the next day etc She's much better now thankfully although still has food control issues...

Depends on what kind of "older" you are talking about.

Most grandparents of small children are probably in their 60s, perhaps even 50s.

Not old enough to have kept house in a time before fridges. Not old enough to have diminished appetites due to being "elderly".

This thread is an eye opener

So many people are weird about food, deep psychological issues here

'I think this whole 'no food in the house' thing is generational. Older people used to food shop every day (no long term storage, local shops rather than supermarkets) and are still in that mentality but without the actual shopping every day (as most of the little shops closed years ago). Older people tend to have smaller appetites too. '

How old? My mother is 75 and my father 80 and there's always plenty of food in the house. They don't have a smaller appetite, either.

OP- if they aren't good at providing snacky foods - take some with you but for everyone, big tins of Quality Street, some tubes of pringles, maybe some nice nuts etc and bring them in during the late afternoon and say "oh, I forgot we bought these for everyone to share, I'll just pop them on the table here" - make sure you open them and do a big of a hand around "Mavis, would you like one of these? Can I tempt you Bob?" etc. This way, the hosts will also see that their guests will actually eat food if it's provided - if you sneak to your room to eat, they won't realise you would like to eat.

My parents are in their late 70s and tend to have a stockpile of food - I've always thought it must have been due to food shortages growing up and also they grew up fairly rural and used to get snowed in. My mum does have a very small appetite (actually I think possibly an eating disorder) but my Dad still eats a fair amount and they don't serve small portions.

YANBU

This thread makes me so happy as I thought I was the only one!! My PIL are the same. They only eat once a day so once a meal is served at lunchtime there is nothing else! They do have a few chocolates but you're not allowed to help yourself - one year I had 3 chocolates and FiL told MIL to take them off me as I was overeating. I can't tell you how humiliating it was as I am overweight. We visited once on the 27th Dec expecting to have an evening meal to be told they'd already eaten and there was nothing left. The only food in the house was one stale slice of pizza from xmas eve or brown bread - at Christmas time!!! I stopped going for a number of years. I've returned this year - only because I've been dieting and I decided a post Christmas fast would do me good! Otherwise they too are great in laws!

Oh yes, we have this at the in-laws on Christmas Day. We have a (perfectly nice) meal, same small size as usual, Christmas pudding, then MIL announces that as we've all eaten so much we won't want anything else all day. Their household is very formal and even my DH does not help himself to or ask for anything. Last year I told him I would not go again if we were going to go hungry. Now we are allowed cheese and crackers as our evening meal. We stayed overnight and came home starving! We each had precisely 2 glasses of wine and 3 chocolates in addition during our stay. They are well off though and don't have any trouble stuffing themselves whenever we have to take them out for a meal ... I offer to host but they refuse as we can't put them up here.

that as we've all eaten so much we won't want anything else all day .. err yes we will! They won't come to us as we can't accommodate them overnight, so we go

announces that as we've all eaten so much we won't want anything else all day .. err yes we will! They won't come to us as we can't accommodate them overnight, so we go

I'm amazed that some relationships in families are so distant that their own sons can't even ask for food. It's very reminiscent of Oliver Twist.

Obviously our circumstances are different because of MIL's alzheimers, but even if she didn't have it and ate like she does now I would not be at all worried about offending her by taking coolbags full of meals to heat up in her microwave.

PILs continued to shop everyday so when FIL died (and no car) MIL could not retrain herself to change. A nightmare.

She also gave the appearance of having a full fridge because it was full of tins? Unopened tins?

.

One poster I'm thinking may quite possibly be either my ex's 2nd wife or his sil!

Meals were EXACTLY the same time every day (to the point it caused a row if staying with them and you dared make plans to not be there at a meal time, even if the reason was visiting other relatives), the ONLY exception being Christmas Day, what day of the week determined what the main meal was (my parents also do this, if it's Tuesday it must be eg sausages argh). But ex in-laws small portions, no condiments unless you asked even for very dry meals, ditto no drinks till AFTER meals, no snacks, no desserts. At the time I was a very slim but active young mum, the visit when I was early on in bf mode I honestly thought I'd faint! It was ridiculous! I ended up making then dh get me a couple of carrier bags worth of food and drink from the supermarket which I then had to hide in our room because otherwise I'd get 'you'll never lose the baby weight eating like that' I was a size 10 post birth!

It is insane both in-laws have been regularly hospitalised because they've been ill partly due to being dehydrated because they don't drink enough (small glass of water after each meal 3 times a day. They've been told REPEATEDLY by Drs they need to drink more. Ex-fil keeps getting bladder infections for crying out loud!)

My mother aside from the meals by weekday does tend to offer a cuppa every hour on the hour and that means being offered a sandwich/biscuit/cake too. The interesting thing is my side of the family were raised extremely poor, my mother didn't have an indoor loo till she was 4 and no fridge till she was 9. Yet they would be mortified at the thought of a guest going hungry. My in laws both come from VERY well off backgrounds and are certainly not short themselves yet behave as if food, even tap water is rationed.

My mother is just like this. I'm both pleased and horrified by how many others there are.
We weren't allowed to eat before our Christmas dinner so we didn't spoil our appetites. Sometimes dinner wouldn't be until 3pm and we'd all be shakey and grumpy as hell. I thought that was just how people did things until I met my DH and he put me straight!