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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be dreading a crap Christmas dinner?

207 replies

Napqueen1234 · 17/12/2019 07:09

Prepared to be told IABU as I should be grateful to get one at all/someone to cook for me. Basically we alternate years with MIL and my family and this year it’s my in laws. For context I’m 8 months pregnant so as a non drinker food is v important to me this year 😂.

My MIL is a terrible cook and takes no joy in hosting. We offered to host but were declined (DH family all 5 mins away from each other and we are 40 mins from there so it’s easier for them I suppose). Won’t cook food she doesn’t like e.g sprouts, pigs in blankets so we end up with a dry turkey crown, not much veg as she doesn’t like it and just a slightly depressing meal.

My dad loves Christmas and goes all out is good cook etc. I just feel so sad to be missing out on my normal Christmas meal the other years it hasn’t bothered me and is obviously part and parcel of taking turns and just life etc but this year I just feel gutted.

Snap me out of this ultimate first world problem please! We have offered to Help (we are making a hamper as a Christmas present of treats and taking Christmas pudding etc so have tried that!). My DH is an only child and not going/ having lunch at home is not an option!

OP posts:
Funguy · 18/12/2019 21:16

Well... my view is you should have nice food Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I have been horrified on several occasions at miserable food on Boxing Day.I have to say I come from a very Christmassy family.
I have started already by cooking nice Morrissons sausage and bacon wrapped chicken dinners so i can buy their wonderful vegetable packs. I have made a cake and a pudding even.
My partner's Stepmother once gave us salad with bought in thin ham on Boxing Day and not much of it- the highlight was Christmas Pudding with... low fat yoghurt. What is more I had no food at home as I was not expecting such parsimony.
Thing is, when they come over they eat me out of house and home!
I am rather poor so I look forward to dinners that are tasty and what is more I am a good cook. Of course you can cook your own later--- in the evening? Or take extra nice things in Tupperware boxes and say you are eating for the baby x

Zeezee82 · 18/12/2019 21:31

Remember that taking turns means you get baby’s first Christmas with your parents.

SabineUndine · 18/12/2019 21:33

I'd go, eat as little as possible, leave as early as possible and have Christmas dinner at home.

OverByYer · 18/12/2019 21:35

What Sabine says

NorthernLightsInWinter · 18/12/2019 21:36

I totally sympathise. My PIL make minimal effort for Xmas dinner. What’s really annoying is that MIL is a good cook but FIL is the one who cooks on Xmas day. I don’t know why

I kind of wouldn't blame MIL in the slightest for making him cook on Christmas day if she is the primary cook on most days. Why should she also have to cater on a holiday, too?

LittleSweet · 18/12/2019 21:40

My mil cooked a large Bernard Matthews style turkey for Christmas lunch. The one with the mushed up meat in the centre with the weird brown meat hula hoop around the outside. I was so disappointed. She would have been furious if we'd brought anything with us to eat.
I think you need to cook a Christmas dinner how you like on another day.

LittleSweet · 18/12/2019 21:41

Starfishmummy yabu, thick gravy is the best!😆

HundredMilesAnHour · 18/12/2019 21:54

My father's partner 'cooks' Christmas lunch for us. When my mother was still alive, I used to do all the cooking but for the sake of family harmony, these days I keep my mouth shut and let my my father's partner cook (although I've made it very clear that I'm happy to do it so she can "have a rest" Wink)

Unfortunately her idea of 'cooking' is quite different to mine. Last year she produced Bisto gravy granules and Aunt Bessie frozen roast potatoes. I wanted to cry. Everything is absolutely minimum effort. It's really sad and doesn't feel like Christmas to me at all.

But I suck it up to keep my father happy. This year I'm taking a pot of Taste the Difference turkey gravy under the disguise of "a treat" (I'd rather make my own gravy but at least this will be better than gravy granules). I'm contemplating taking some M&S roast potatoes but not sure if that may be too controversial. But I have some amazing Baileys brownies that I'll take for an 'extra' dessert. It's frustrating but I guess it's a first world problem.

Noideaatall · 18/12/2019 22:01

oh so relieved it's not just me. I feel as though I "miss" Christmas every other year when we go to PILs because they have goose and trifle. I like turkey and Christmas pudding. I take a bag of snacks when we go now as the first year we went I was breast-feeding and crying with hunger by the time dinner appeared. At 10pm.

EncroachingLoaf · 18/12/2019 22:02

Yanbu at all.

It's no ruder to bring your own food than it is to be a joyless host offering a bleak and miserable meal for everyone on Christmas bloody day of all days.

Christmas dinner is supposed to be hearty and indulgent and something to look forward to (Why we visit MIL's after we've eaten ours!).

Take the pigs in blankets- we've had them every Christmas since the 1980s at least so they're hardly new in my neck of the woods Wink

jillybeanclevertips · 18/12/2019 22:07

Gosh, what a conundrum. I'd have to tell my MIL that her cooking sucks and that unless she lets someone else do it, you're eating at home or your Dads. Or, share out the dishes and each bring them along, you can do this by lucky draw if you like, that way at least some of the meal will be edible. Start planning for next year NOW, when you'll have a baby to feed too. Good luck with it all, try to think Peace, goodwill to all etc.
WTF ? Not what should be happening. MIL sounds like a dictator- taters are good if roasted properly !!!

Feelingstupid123456789101112 · 18/12/2019 22:22

You are pregnant, cook whatever you like to take and say it’s a craving! Ask your dad to plate you up of of his dinners for another day.

Likefootball · 18/12/2019 22:54

Take the food you like sprouts, pigs in blankets etc. As your contribution to the meal. MIL doesn't have to have anything she does not want.
Its miserable to have a meal you don't enjoy especially,I imagine, when you're pregnant.

Mothership4two · 19/12/2019 00:00

My first thoughts were the same as @Pigletthedog and others, just take the stuff you like plus a really nice rich gravy to help mask the dry turkey.

My mil is also an awful cook (which she freely admits - she doesnt enjoy it) and fil doesnt cook at all, so I 'feel you' OP

queenqueenqueen · 19/12/2019 06:58

Oh no @littlesweet that sounds grim!!

SkaraBrae · 19/12/2019 08:04

Re dry meat- being non-British I have never cooked a proper Christmas meal.
My ILs do go all out and serve up a feast. It is genuinely amazing but I just don't get how the turkey is sliced so thin? Why not keep some crispy skin on???

I thought it was a size issue.
But one day I had ILs over for dinner. I though I'd do roast chicken and bought a lovely organic one. Was REALLY looking forward to it.
My (lovely) MIL kindly offered to cut it- what I didn't realise is that she did it turkey-style, with as many thin slices as she could manage, and she threw out all the skin!!! I could have cried. 😁

BlaueLagune · 19/12/2019 08:13

I don't like the skin so I would have done the same! I do crisp it up though (just happens in the oven as I remove the foil for the last 30 mins cooking time). Not sure about the "thin slices" though - what do you do otherwise - cut it off in chunks? If you cut it in thin slices you have loads of leftovers - we like leftovers for sandwiches, curry, turkey and chips etc).

I am not a very good cook but the one thing I can do is a decent roast dinner. I do use gravy granules but by the time you've added turkey/chicken juices and a bit of the honey I use to roast the carrots in, it tastes good. Bit disappointed that Bisto seems to have discontinued its turkey granules, the chicken ones are insipid.

I also cook things I don't like - sprouts, parsnips and make pigs in blankets (can't believe people can't wrap a piece of bacon around a sausage!) - how difficult is it?

PineappleDanish · 19/12/2019 08:15

When I go to MIL's we often "forget" to bring toohtbrushes or some other essential so I can dash to Sainsbury's for some snacks. Not really an option at CHristmas though.

As for the dry meat - mIL is not a cook and gets in a right flap about cooking for everyone. She buys far too big a turkey and can't fit it in her oven along with everything else, so "has" to cook it the night before. Then because she's a rubbish cook she thinks that longer in the oven = better and safer. Cremate the turkey. Cool and refrigerate. Serve cold the next day. Envy not envy.

MIL and FIL are not interested in food and eating. They do not eat out.They would not understand what good food is. They genuinely think that the best eating out experience for a special occasion is at the local Hungry Horse pub and that the ultimate special meal dessert is a 99p mandarin cheesecake from iceland.

elprup · 19/12/2019 08:20

My mum is the most excellent cook and does a fantastic Christmas lunch with all the trimmings. My DH’s family are very average, using packet/frozen stuff for everything and awful gravy. They’re also vegetarian (I’m a meat eater!) so there’s no turkey or pigs in blankets. Fortunately we usually spend Christmas with my family as they live much closer. But I feel your pain OP and YADNBU!

Peppapeppapeppapeppa · 19/12/2019 08:41

Come on, the people saying pigs in blankets arent part of Christmas dinner, or are some sort of new invention, really? You're on the wind-up surely. I don't actually like them that much but have still eaten them every Christmas for the last 35 years Grin

BriefDisaster · 19/12/2019 08:42

YANBU - I would take some of your own food if I were you.

There are a number of reasons that we would never do Christmas dinner at the PILs but one of the biggest is MILs terrible cooking.

We suffer through it every boxing day instead but at least she isn't trying to make a full roast that day and usually makes something more simple.

I feel bad even saying it as Im no great cook myself and rely on DH to feed us a decent meal.

PineappleDanish · 19/12/2019 08:46

One year we did suggest to MIL she got all of the pre-prepared stuff from M&S and just whacked it in the oven.

Apparently that's not a "proper" Christmas dinner,

NotAClue101 · 19/12/2019 09:18

I totally sympathize with you. I LOVE Christmas, and the dinner is my favorite. I always spent it with my family, as I worked Xmas day, so my husband had dinner with his folks and then when I finished work he come to my families.
Three years ago we had to spend it with his family as he said only fair to alternate - which I agree.
It was however the first year without my Gran (she died 8 weeks before) and she always hosted Xmas, and made it such a wonderful day for us all. Anyway I went to his parents, slapped a smile on my face, offered to help cook, serve, wash up etc. the food was awful (frozen potatoes) stuffing like cardboard, the pudding was vile (MIL spat hers back in bowl and said it was vile herself)
I made a real effort to enjoy the time, to find out I was slagged off after as apparently I didn't enjoy myself 🤷🏻‍♀️ bari f in mind there was just the four of us, and their idea of a good day is to get smashed from the moment you wake (alcoholic) where I'm not a big drinker at all. They watch Tv all morning, then drag themselves to the table, eat and then back to Tv, in all fairness I'm not going to swing from the chandelier through excitement!!
Anyway...this year was their year again, and my babies first Xmas! I was dreading it if I'm honest like you, but my husband said we aren't going there this year as his mum finds it too hard hosting us as she would rather get balddered....fine by me!!

Bluerussian · 19/12/2019 09:22

I don't understand why nobody has told the mother in law that her Christmas dinners are rather mean. Everyone cooks things they aren't keen on at times in order to please guests -so should she.

fedup2017 · 19/12/2019 09:45

Maybe it's because my children are now late teens but I actually feel really sorry for the mother in law.
She is obviously cooking what she and her husband think of as a traditional Christmas dinner ( and what your husband grew up with as a child). She isn't leaving off the pigs and blankets because she hates you.

Anyway, when my eldest marries a gluten intolerant nut allergic vegan in 10 years time and I produce a baked mushroom for her main I'm sure she can come on here and bitch about my unadventurous cooking style.......