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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To eat Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve.

43 replies

DA1115 · 04/10/2019 20:20

This has proably been asked before, sorry. Thinking of cooking and eating Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve this year

Christmas Day is such a busy day. This year we will have to visit the in laws, cook dinner, visit my family and get my son to his dads all in one day. So thinking of doing it the night before?

Previous years, we have gone to the in laws to eat but they have decided to go out for Christmas dinner this year, Christmas dinner at my mums is too much and my kitchen isn’t big enough to cook for our families. Plus we don’t like to upset either of our familes by going to one and not the other.

By the time we do all this there’s literally no time to chill at all. Christmas Day goes by in a blur and we are exhausted.

So eating dinner on Christmas Eve? Yes or no...?

OP posts:
redexpat · 04/10/2019 21:29

I've done it since I married a Dane. It really is easier to cook for such a big meal in the evening, and frees up such a wack of time on Christmas day.

Ivysaurus · 04/10/2019 21:35

It used to be our family tradition to have it on boxing day and just buffet on xmas day,so go for it

1066vegan · 04/10/2019 21:46

Alternatively, visit one set of parents on Christmas Eve and the others on Boxing day. Have Christmas dinner on Christmas day, but make it a relaxed day at home with just your own little family.

Stravapalava · 04/10/2019 21:59

I think that sounds like a great idea.

I think the Royal Family have their main dinner on Christmas Eve as well, as well as a lot of Europe, so you're in good company!

babypossum · 04/10/2019 22:02

We do exactly that and it makes for a much more enjoyable Christmas Day. I just wish we'd thought of it when my mum was alive as she always hosted.

Wallywobbles · 04/10/2019 22:21

All the French do it. They only get 25th off.

pooboobsleeprepeat · 04/10/2019 22:44

Sounds like you’re trying to do too much people pleasing! Do what you want to do!

Longtime · 04/10/2019 23:02

Christmas meal on Christmas Eve here in Belgium too!

Longtime · 04/10/2019 23:02

(and we also don't get Boxing Day off either)

ChimpyChops · 04/10/2019 23:03

I was on a late shift last Christmas Day so we had dinner on Christmas Eve to save time rushing about on the day.

It was wonderful 😊

saraclara · 04/10/2019 23:06

Christmas was all about Christmas Eve at my inlaws (FIL was Polish) which was great because it meant we could have Christmas Eve there and Christmas Day with my parents!

Now I have kids and they're grown, and one of them is a nurse, we have Christmas day whenever we can fit it in! Last year it was Christmas Eve. Another it was Boxing day. As long as we're all together and it's somewhere in that three day period, it's Christmas as far as we're concerned!

Kolo · 04/10/2019 23:09

@redexpat me too! I’m married to a Dane too, and spent enough christmases over there to really enjoy the yulegrod on 23rd and Christmas dinner on 24th (plus the tree dancing). If we feel like it we also have Christmas dinner on 25th too.

pigsDOfly · 04/10/2019 23:10

I don't think there's any actual law against it.

I'm so radical, some years I've actually had no Christmas dinner at all throughout the whole Christmas period.

Hecksonaplane · 04/10/2019 23:18

We started this year's ago when dh used to work Christmas day, he hasn't worked shifts in years but we kept this up so we could spend the big day with the kids and relax and people are in great spirits on Xmas eve!

CleverLoginName · 05/10/2019 07:25

We've done this for the past 6 years and it's now our tradition. I love it because it means I too can enjoy Christmas Day without being chained to the stove

Onescaredmuma · 05/10/2019 07:57

We've changed the whole day a couple of times when DH has been working he's gone about 14 hours a day so by the time he gets back the kids were going to bed. We told the kids we had a word with santa who was OK with it because they'd been really good and then Christmas eve became our Christmas day. Christmas day we chilled out and ate Tesco party packs while the kids played with their new toys and I had a very easy Christmas. I'd say go for it do whatever makes the day easier for you.

Bluesheep8 · 05/10/2019 08:12

My DPs late mother was Austrian. He grew up with her tradition of the Christmas meal and present opening on Christmas eve. My mother is Irish Catholic so I grew up eating fish on Christmas eve so we kind of combine the two and have a special meal based around fish on Christmas eve and select a few gifts to open. I still cook a Christmas dinner on Christmas day though, just can't seem to break that tradition. Having said that, last year we had our fish meal on Christmas eve and as it was just the two of us, went and helped out at a Christmas day event for local people who found themselves alone on Christmas day, then had nice buffet type things in the evening when we got back. It was lovely!

SnuggyBuggy · 05/10/2019 08:16

My parents sometimes do that. Means a chilled out Christmas day eating leftovers.

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