Woman charges family £30 per adult for Christmas dinner!

[Butterfr33]

There's a lady whose story is circulating online and has appeared on 'This Morning'. She charges the adults in her family £30 each for food and drinks for Christmas Day. This has caused a lot of outrage!

AIBU to agree with her? One person can't be expected to pay for 12+ people's food and drinks, of course the should contribute! In the past she's tried 'bring a dish' but people were unreliable and most would forget!

In our family we all contribute something for Christmas, we all have a list of what each person gets so it is split reasonably equally. (We all bring a course for the main mean, drinks and food towards an evening buffet).

I don't see that any different to contributing money towards the day (except for the stress is all on one person to buy in all the food and cook it all etc)

I think it's reasonable. We used to host Christmas every year (relatives used to stay for days!) simply because we have the largest house. It was great to offer that dbil never brought so much as a bottle of wine so I stopped doing it and now we don't have big christmases. Now if someone were to offer to do it but ask for money I would be glad to pay - and obviously help out with the food prep, washing up etc.

We do this in my family - Christmas dinner is expensive - it isnt like a normal dinner party where you can make almost anything and hence control the budget. A turkey, all the trimmings, nibbles etc etc all add up. It really isnt cheap. I wouldn't dream of not at the very least offering to contribute towards the cost of the Christmas dinner! How can you have the balls to turn up to someone's for that special meal and expect it all laid on at no cost to you??

If you invite someone to your house for a dinner party, it is completely unreasonable to then charge them for the pleasure, having invited them over.

I think family over for Christmas Day at one person's house is a big difference from inviting the boss and his wife over for a 'dinner party'. Usually whoever has the biggest/most central house hosts every year, and may do so for years on end. I think it's quite acceptable for family to chip in.

I do have someone coming to mine for Christmas Day this year as they would otherwise be alone, and their first question was 'what can I bring?'. I'm not charging her (asked her to bring some wine), but I'm lucky enough to have the disposable income that it's not a hardship for me. Christmas is expensive, and if I were going to someone's house that I knew was struggling, I'd want to contribute.

She's great and the rest are freeloaders and grabby if they haven't contributed any food or drink or work in the past.

Going against the grain here as I see most posters think it's a good idea.

I think it's wrong, I don't agree with it, and I wouldn't go.

If she wants to charge family members to come to her house on Christmas day, that is her right. If her family want to go to her house and pay, that's their right. But something about it doesn't sit well with me.

I wonder if she sends them an invoice, or sets up a direct debit for them to pay in instalments a few months before the day? And if they can't afford it they don't get to come?

As I said, I would not go. I prefer to spend my time at Christmas with family who don't charge me any money to eat and drink at their house. Or I have them at mine, (where I don't charge them either.)

Then again, none of my family have ever spent ludicrous amounts on Christmas, for gifts or food.

I am genuinely gobsmacked at the person (on page 2,) who said their Christmas grocery bill topped £1000 last year. I simply can't get my head round it. Did you invite the entire village to Christmas dinner?

Wow, I'm astounded at the amount of money people spend! But then we have fairly quiet family Christmases, but even per head we spend way less than many.

People are spending more per head for one day than I do for a week. Even for Christmas, the bill goes up only by about a tenner per head.

But sure as hell if I was spending hundreds of pounds catering for a large group of people, I'd be sharing the cost somehow, whether that was everyone providing something or getting it in cash. Why should everyone put all the stress (money and time and effort) on to one person, and think that's ok?

Part of me thinks "You cheap bitch", but when I lived in London in my 20s/ early 30/ I hosted 'Orphans Christmas' many times and invited various expats, often friends of friends. Often people would turn up with nothing - not even a box of quality street - and gorge themselves. The award went to a group of 4 Australian and American girls who a friend from Canada begged me to take in, having never met them before. They drank the house dry, crashed in the living room and we woke in the morning to find them scavenging in the kitchen for Tupperware containers to carry leftovers to take home (focusing on hunks of turkey and ham, and ignoring the more mundane vegetables). That was my second to last Orphans Christmas as I felt taken advantage of rather than appreciated.
I'm still an expat now, but a different country. We go to a friends on Christmas Eve for a celebration meal, and I bring three homemade desserts plus alcohol, and on Christmas Day it's just my DH and I.

@dangermouse7 Well if you're happy to be the CF who eats and drinks other people's food and drinks for free then that's your prerogative!

I don't think I could charge my family though if we were with them- it sounds cheap and scroungey

£30 a head does seem a lot for a normal Christmas dinner - unless she's getting everything readymade from M&S, like the woman I once stood behind at the checkout on 23rd Dec. Her bill was eye-watering. I'm sure ours for a crowd wouldn't cost anything like that.

Still, it's probably quite a bit less than they'd have to pay for any reasonable Christmas dinner out.

If money's tight it's entirely reasonable IMO to ask people to chip in.

We hosted for the first time last year and didn’t ask for contributions. My parents brought things and my in laws (who stayed with us for five days) bought the turkey and other meats. SIL (who wanted cheese from a cheese shop) bought the cheese (£100!) and we picked up the veg and trimmings. Plenty of booze in the cupboard.

Hosted for extended family on Boxing Day and not one of them brought anything for the table.

I saw her on this morning and her argument made sense.

She hosts every year because her house is the only one big enough too.
She has tried the bring a dish before but had several people call on Xmas eve saying they hadn’t got anything so she was then rushing around like mad getting things.
Her son has allergies so she has to be careful about what is in the food.
Only adults pay, not kids, of which there are a lot.
And she even has her ex husband and his parents round too.

Christmas is expensive.

As a guest I wouldn’t have a problem with this at all. In fact is much rather this than the host feeling resentful.
The bring a dish thing is a bit of a swizz as the host you still end up paying more.

As I said, I would not go. I prefer to spend my time at Christmas with family who don't charge me any money to eat and drink at their house. Or I have them at mine, (where I don't charge them either.)

I think the use of the word 'charge' is where it is misused here. It's not 'charge' it's a splitting of the costs of a family function. If they all went away on holiday and split the food bill, would you think that is fair?

If you're hosting for the first time, then it's a bit unreasonable, but if a family has form for turning up empty handed, then desperate measures are called for!

I'm afraid I haven't read whole thread yet, but has anyone linked to that Thanksgiving Memo that went viral? A woman got heartily fed up with cheapskate family and sent a round robin detailing what each family member should bring, with barbed comments about "own brand" beer and the dsis who despite being a married adult was still playing the teenager card.

I don't understand why this is big news. It is unreasonable to expect the same person to host the most expensive meal of the year, every year, asking for table contributions clearly hadn't worked so splitting the bill is the best option.

People can then chose to either pay up, or offer to host themselves, which again they clearly haven't.

In our family we wouldn't charge family for Christmas dinner but there are never more than 8 of us anyway and my parents have always preferred to host and money is not tight. This year we are happy to be hosting. If it is a wider family event we would do a lighter (cheaper) buffet.

I think as long as everyone knows what they are signing up for it's fine. I host for my parents and in-laws so we're 8 for dinner and everyone brings multiple dishes or chips in; my dad pays for the turkey (Norfolk Black and about £70!) so £30pp doesn't seem to bad to me.

I was really and would never think of doing this but adding up what we spend hosting Christmas for 6 adults and 4 children it’s almost £500. I actually wish I hadn’t added it up. We have a gluten free, 2 dairy free, one very fussy SEN (although she’s mine), and I’m veggie (not through choice but health reasons although that shouldn’t matter) plus DM likes a drink as it’s the one day he doesn’t have to drive and dm likes a drink and the kids are allowed shloer etc argh. Anyway excuse my panicked rambling I just mean I can see maybe if she can’t afford it and her family wants her to host that’s the only way especially as if her son has allergies she couldn’t go elsewhere.

*Dh likes a drink as it’s the one day he doesn’t have to drive

So effectively it is £15 per head when split between everyone. That's not a crazy amount when it includes drinks etc for the whole day.

I host most years (8 adults and attached children, ranging from 4 to 17) and I would feel very uncomfortable about asking for money. I wouldn't! But my guests generally bring booze, a ham, cheese, chocolates, maybe a trifle, etc so the catering is shared. And we don't do presents for adults, only children, so the meal is sort of our gift to each other. Guess it depends on your budget. If my guests didn't bring the extras, there would still be a full-on Christmas dinner provided at our house, it's just nice that they do.

I can see both sides to this

Don't understand the angst.

In my family we usually contribute food (i live a long way away so usually get tasked with buying cheese as I can either buy it here and travel with it or do a dirty dash on Christmas Eve) but I can quite imagine a day when the host says actually 30quud would be better than some random cheese and some wine.

Hosting is expensive and if it falls disproportionately on one family member this isn't fair.

Not Christmas - but for a long time my flat was the natural home for friend's gatherings as I had a massive dining space and central location. Initially I used to cook but when we met up for the sixth time in a row with no real help (financial or practical) I started ordering takeaway and splitting the bill.

One (ex)friend commented that it was much more expensive to meet up now they had to pay their share of the takeaway and could I not go back to cooking. I commented that it was much cheaper for me as I was no longer dropping 150quid (or more) in Sainsbury's that week and didn't have to spend the afternoon cooking. I genuinely think it had ever occurred to them that the food they were eating cost me money & time.