£100 for xmas dinner

[disneydatknee]

We went to sis inlayws for xmas dinner this year and shes charging £100 per family. No alcohol was provided, we had to bring our own. Pud was brought by another family member. All her veg was free from a local charity for food waste. So she only paid for meat which I ate about half a palmful of beef of. My family consists of 2 adults and 2 children that ate fuck all. Aibu to say I'm not fucking paying it? No back story or drip feed. This is it!

Put it in the group chat that you are only paying £50 as that was initially agreed and as there was no alcohol etc then you can't see any reason for her to charge double.

Hopefully this gives everyone else the balls to agree with you.

She literally messaged everyone 2 days after xmas with her back details like oh I've calculated it's now £100 per family. Please pay today.

Is this a whole family WhatsApp group ? I'd have to reply with a 'Don't be ridiculous - your estimation of £50 was to include alcohol, which didn't materialise. 'Jane' brought the puddings and you told us all you got all the veg for free. How exactly are you even claiming it came anywhere near £12.50 each, let alone double that?'.
Well, in truth, I'd get dh to put that in, rather than you, but I wouldn't let people just pay up.

People behave like CF's because others enable them to get away with it.

It's all very well her parents grumbling but paying up to keep the peace whilst everyone else is left feeling (rightly) resentful.

Tbf the original quote of £50 including alcohol sounds more than fair to me and is on par with what I spent hosting this year (probably nearer to £70 per family but we had pre-dinner nibbles, lobster starter, a massive rib of beef, Xmas pudding/chocolate and raspberry tart and cheese) and the fact you only had a small amount of beef is neither here nor there given it was provided.

However it doesn't sound like you had food that was on par with what I provided, the veg was free and she reneged on the promise of alcohol.

There is no way on this earth she spent £100 per family and tbh even if she did because the beef was sprinkled in fairy dust then she choose to spend over budget and it's not fair to expect everyone else to compensate for that after the event.

In your case OP there is no way I'd pay the extra money. She's clearly happy to rip her own family off to cover other spending and it's not on.

At best I'd transfer £40 with a message saying "thanks for hosting, as per the original agreement we've popped £40 in your bank to pay for the food less alcohol". If she throws a fit then ask her to justify what she spent the money on given pudding was supplied by someone else, alcohol by the families and veg was free.

Fuck me that's horrendous.

Id chuck her a tenner. But then if I was hosting and couldn't afford it all, I'd agree a contribution per head beforehand and cut my cloth accordingly. A huge % of that £50 was for alcohol that you'r didn't get, hence my suggestion of a tenner being more than reasonable.

Do you seriously think a tenner to host a family of four for dinner is reasonable TheLittleBrownFox? The £100 when there was no alcohol is ridiculous but so is 10 quid.

@ohprettybaby Yorkshire pudding? On Christmas dinner?

Fuck me that's horrendous.

Id chuck her a tenner. But then if I was hosting and couldn't afford it all, I'd agree a contribution per head beforehand and cut my cloth accordingly. A huge % of that £50 was for alcohol that you'r didn't get, hence my suggestion of a tenner being more than reasonable

I suspect you've never hosted Christmas dinner...

I'm bemused by the concept of charging for it at all. We hosted this year and paid for it ourselves. Would never have crossed our minds to send folk a bill!

If you can't afford it, don't host!

As mentioned many times Ginger1982 some families all contribute to the cost so that they can eat together at Xmas. I host every year and always pay but I'm not so removed from reality to think everyone can do it. It's fucking expensive.

I've never heard of anyone charging family or friends when hosting. Sure bring some alcohol/chocs/desserts or flowers if you wish but if we're hosting then we pay and wouldn't expect a penny. In the past it would have been our parents hosting big family get togethers but now they are older it is my generations turn and we take it in turns.

It's not a case of 'charging' in some cases, more that people contribute. I wouldn't dream of going to someone's house for a week and not bringing them some cash unless they were really well off and even then it would feel wrong. Just turning up with a £7 pudding and a bottle of prosseco wouldn't even scratch the surface.

We always host Christmas for around 20 people as we are the only ones with a table and a house big enough to accommodate everyone. Although my mum brings some booze and a ham for the evening, the rest of the costs fall entirely on us.
We just chalk it up to an additional Christmas expense. We spend a very large amount on feeding and watering all our guests well throughout the day, well over a thousand pounds but that is totally our choice - we could halve it but would be skipping out some really extra touches so we don’t - it’s Christmas!
I would never charge anyone any money for coming to ours for Christmas, if we couldn’t afford it though I think we would just not bother and wait to see if anyone invited us to theirs (unlikely as they don’t have the room).
I do get a bit pissed off with all the prep in the lead up and all the clearing up throughout the day and afterwards but my family are all very appreciative (why wouldn’t they be?!) and we do all have a really nice day together.
Just send the £50 across, by the time you’ve added on all the extras that you haven’t mentioned (and I just mean things like all the olive oil, butter, salt, soft drinks, horseradish/crepe fraiche for sauce, gravy ingredients, fresh herbs, mustards etc) it massively adds up.
I think unless you actually host for a large number of people you probably don’t realise the true cost of what goes into providing a good Christmas dinner.

Although to put the beef into context, we went to Waitrose and got a 5 full forerib of aged beef and it was £170, it was so huge - I think around 9kg and will feed us into the new year despite 20 people eating it on Christmas Day!

If I were You, I would pay what she wants.

And I would make a mental note to NEVER eat at hers again. I would invite her to mine and really show her what she SHOULD have done, given her a fantastic meal and refused to take a penny. Then, I would sit back and reflect on how lucky she was to have someone like me in her life. Lol.
You can choose how you react to it.

@Thelastlittledragon I agree. I think some families, such as mine prefer to be together on xmas day but it is more suitable space wise at my house so rather than me paying for everyone (or everyone staying at home individually and buying their own) we just split the cost. It's not charging them it's literally just splitting the shopping bill. Definitely no profit made, the opposite in fact.

The concept of charging isn't the point though.
It seems like news to some people that not everyone is in the same financial circumstances as themselves, and that some people's houses don't lend themselves to hosting, so that sometimes, in families isn't practical to 'take turns.
The concept of splitting the cost is fine, if that's what works for OP's dh's family. The problem is the SiL both not providing what she said she was going to (quite an expensive part of the original anticipated cost) and then also doubling what everyone had agreed to chip in.

@ohprettybaby. Agreed. We went out for dinner and it was £900. For 7 adults and 2 children.

£1000 for Christmas Day for 20 people? Seriously? What on earth are you feeding them @TheChosenTwo?

@TheChosenTwo. I agree. What on earth?

TheChosenTwo explained just above exactly what she fed her guests, sounds wonderful

I did a Christmas dinner for freinds for £7 a head. But didn't include alcohol and I only spent £15 on a large turkey breast. But it did include pudding. £50 isn't completely out of order but £100 Is. No way I'd pay a penny more than £50!

I think she wants you all to fund her secret crack habit.

@BackforGood totally agree, it would be fine if splitting the actual cost but no way it cost £50 for just meat, let alone £100!

I agree that people don't realise how much it all costs, even without much booze it's all the add ons - Christmas crackers, napkins, puddings, cheese, stuff to eat later, soft drinks, I spent £250 on 12 people (with leftovers of stuff to use on boxing day as well). I bought a kelly bronze turkey though as welfare is important to me. I didn't charge anyone, but it would be nice if the cost was a bit more appreciated.

I do think £100 is steep, especially as she's charging you for booze other people drank. But personally as it is family I'd pay it to keep the peace but never do it again and if asked why just say you can't afford to.

We had canapés to start along with some cocktails, then the main was the beef, pigs in blankets and all the trimmings etc. Puddings were hot chocolate melt in the middle fondants with a butterscotch sauce and also profiteroles and mince pies. It was all
Homemade down to the sauce, pastry , mincemeat and bone marrow gravy.
The buffet in the evening had the ham my mum had made, a load of the beef and pigs in blankets then things like sausage rolls, a cheeseboard, the crackers and bread, pickled onions, Cornichons, chutneys,
All meat is high welfare and the rest of the produce as organic/free range etc as is possible to buy.
I worked out on another thread that the total cost of hosting christmas was around £1500. The crackers, napkins, candles for the table, saw a nice new water jug, we needed another dinner service and some of our plates were chipped (we’ve kept them as they’re fine for our day to day use obviously), then the things no one thinks about costing in which is all the extra dishwasher tablets, foil/cling film, coffee pods for the coffee machine, tins to make the chocolate fondants etc. All of this stuff will continued to get used, we host a lot anyway so the excess won’t go to waste.
As I said, we know we could have done it a lot cheaper but we would have made sacrifices and at Christmas we didn’t want to.
The booze however is the biggest cost drainer - 6 bottles of red, 6 white, 6 champagne, barrels for the beer pump, spirits for cocktails, nice bottles of gin and vodka, nice mixers, then even the soft drinks like san pellegrinos or J20 aren’t particularly cheap.