My Partner's best friend

[SpacemanDad]

AIBU to be slightly miffed my partner's best friend is coming for Christmas dinner with her 2 adult age children?

My girlfriend and I have lived together for over 25 years. Her best friend from childhood lives in Malta but comes back to the UK 6 or 7 times a year to visit her mother and now adult age children and ourselves. The friend is very opinionated and with every visit she "offers suggestions" to us as to how our lives could be improved. These suggestions get louder and a little less subtle as the wine glasses get topped up, which I usually don't mind because she's my girlfriend's best mate, they don't see a great deal of each other, and I can slip away to the kitchen and read a book once they really start on the wine.

2 nights ago my girlfriend was messaging back and forth to her pal and pipes up to me "Poor D*e, everyone is either working or away for Christmas this year and she'll be on her own". Obviously, I wouldn't want to see anyone on their own at Christmas so just said "Why don't you invite her here for her Christmas dinner". Within 10 minutes this had changed from Poor D**e being on her own on Christmas day to her bringing her 2 adult age children with her and remember one of them's a vegan (I do all the cooking in our house)
I work on an oil platform in the North Sea, and over the years have spent roughly half my Christmases away from home and was particularly looking forward to this year as it's my 50th Birthday a couple of days before Christmas, I've spent the past 6 months of what's been an incredibly stressful working year thinking about the festive season and spending time with my own family doing our usual Christmas thing. The thought of having to host effectively a full other family with dietary requirements I'm not familiar with.

TL:DR - After spending 6 months of the year away from home working and having looked forward to spending a special time of year with the people I love AIBU to be miffed that I have to host and cater for an entire other family on Christmas day?

I guessed Deirdre

If they have to come, I would refuse to cook the vegan food. You didn't invite a vegan, so cook for those who were invited. If anything is said, just say you hadn't invited a vegan so hadn't cooked anything.

I'd also make sure I had beef dripping potatoes and yorkshires to minimise the veggie friendly stuff either.

Let the CFs stew in their own CFery.

OP, your problem bid with your partner.

That's very sneaky and would piss me right off.

She is not alone.

She's just looking for some mug to host them and they found you!

Tell your partner that she can organise the food if she won't withdraw the invite.

It's very selfish of her to put her friends family ahead of you.

Tell her straight of prepare to stew over it!

Very cheeky

Two options:

1. Withdraw unite, point out to your partner the reason ie she isn’t alone and can be obnoxious.
2. They come but tell them explicitly it is a traditional meal, not vegan so they bring the vegans food themselves.

How friggin rude they would even assume you’d cook vegan! Very entitled.

OMG - YWNBU to change your mind about the offer.

I'd say - "Well, that changes things a bit - we can book a meal at XYZ restaurant so everyone can order/pay for what they want. And don't forget to tell them to go shopping for any specific dietary needs they have as you are not an expert in this area"

or "No - this is not what I meant when I said your lonely friend could come. She is clearly not alone if her adult children are with her. Get a grip and tell them to stay where they are and have their own family Xmas"

And remind her it is a special one for YOU.

YANBU the way I see it, you can either uninvite them, stating that she is obviously not alone and with it being a special year were really looking forward to spending it just the family. Tell your GF that they can still come as long as she shorts out food for the Vegan, as you won't do it. Or just stick to the original plan and do it all yourself.

More of a partner problem than anything else, unfortunately. And I personally definitely wouldn't keep wine around. Whenever she's around...

There are some people that are absolutely unbearable as soon as they're a bit tipsy....

I'd be saying to your dp the invite was for freind only , tell your dp since shes decided this she can cook and arrange everything this year, put your feet up and enjoy

I have a great nut roast recipe that could easily be made vegan if you want it. It's so delicious everyone in our family always steals a bit from the veggies

YANBU. she's being a CF brining her children to a lunch she was only invited to because she's on her own.

If it's a done deal, you're going to have to tell her that she needs to contribute/ at least bring vegan appropriate food (and separate pans if strict) for the one adult child.

Oh OP, why did you offer?! Speak up quicky and say no to three people!!!

AHH is it worth the possible backlash from your girlfriend by uninviting them ?
Could u say u didn't realise u were catering for a whole other family and that would she not prefer to spend Xmas day with her kids and u can have them over on boxing Day for a nice dinner?
It's a tough one because you didn't speak up at the time
U may just have to suck it up and remember never to offer ever again lol

Is she English or Maltese? That would determine how I approach it... The Maltese have a very different culture to us.

Hello again, OP here.
Thanks to all who've commented so far.
Couple of points -
Girlfriend hasn't decieved, her friend's parents have seperated this year and both now live in different countries so we now assume that when she saaid "everyone is away" she meant her parents and not her kids, it's been a misunderstanding, that we're both trying to find a way out of
We're all from the UK, not Maltese.
As I'm away from home working at the moment, with my girlfriend at home with our DS, working full time and fitting in the School, football, swimming etc runs as, effectively, a single parent it's hard to get a chance to chat about this on top of all the other things we deal with day to day, BUT, we're using tonight's facetime chat to discuss and I think it will boil down to either of the following
1- I message the friend saying something along the lines of I'd misunderstood the whole "everyone is away" thing to mean everyone and not just her parents, then ask for her families likes nd dislikes as I need to plan due to only having 2 weeks onshore between now and the big day, and effectively drop so many "you might need to bring a couple of chairs" type comments that, while polite, will give the message that this is going to be a massive intrusion on a family day
2 - Girlfriend speaks to her friend and says I've just found out it's 3 people and not one and that I'm not really up for so many people in the house (we'll have my in-laws, brother in law, his partner and their youngest too) so it may be better if she made her own plans.

I'll keep you all up to date with how it goes, just feel stuck in a terribly British dilema of manners and the keen desire to cause no offence!

1 is too vague OP. It won't get your point across that you're not happy about this. Whether you or your GF speaks to 'D' you need to make it clear that there was a misunderstanding about her being alone and you can't cater for an extra 3 people. We don't know D but either way you need to be clear- if she's a CF she needs clear boundaries and if she's nice I'm sure she'd be mortified if she realised how much this is imposing on you.

Go for No. 2. Cheeky Fuckers don’t respond to subtlety.

Agreed. You need to go for option 2. The other is far too discrete

@Gruzinkerbell👍

Exactly what she said. Spell it out.

Omg I read #1 and did this facepalm 🤦🏻‍♀️

Hints will NOT work here! You need to be clear and direct. She saw you coming didn’t she?!

Just get your girlfriend to say straight out, oh I'm so sorry friend, I thought you would be alone for Christmas that's why I invited you. I didn't realise you were bringing child 1 and child 2. That won't work out I'm afraid because.... No room, your birthday, too many people, you were just trying to be nice, any excuse you like. But be straight and say no, because otherwise this CF will be at yours for Christmas with cfChild1 and 2.

What @TargaryenBean said. The friend will take no notice of hints at all