£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!

What's wrong with spending Christmas with your own nuclear family and the wider family getting together for mince pies on Boxing Day?

Because there's no chance in hell I'd have my mum sat at home on her own for xmas day when she could be with her daughter and grandchildren. Because I have siblings who live abroad who have come to spend the day with us. Because my DH has elderly parents who appreciate having their xmas dinner cooked for them and seeing their GC on xmas day. Because funnily enough we love each other, enjoy each others company and want to spend special days like xmas together. Really not that difficult to comprehend is it?

All those MN posters in the never-ever-been-poor aka ‘comfortably off’ bracket should read BrieAndChilli’s post and actually think about it.
I frequently host family and never ask anyone to pay or bring anything. But I can remember being poor . I can remember being a young adult and not being able to afford to buy coffee or bacon for myself. I was not stupid or bad at budgeting- just poor! It’s surely not difficult to imagine households who literally cannot afford to feed an extra dozen family members a Christmas dinner at an already expensive time of year?
Concerning this post however, I think OPs SIL is being really cheeky and ripping off her own family. I would be asking for a breakdown! BTW I have well off friends who rotate Christmas dinner around 3 households in their family. They are all massive foodies so the meal costs a lot per head. The host actually prepares an itemised bill to give a breakdown of the costs! I know this as one year my friend was commenting that her sister had spend £60 just on cheese. Each to their own I guess.

I always do Christmas for my small family, just the five of us, plus the Labrador. I have never thought of charging them for helping me to enjoy the festive season. Daughter and partner always bring quality wine, cheeses etc. Never thought of charging them. Just so glad that they still want to attend Christmas with aged parents. I would tell your lot where to go and don't give them a penny. Next year, invite them and tell them that the cost is £200 plus VAT. Local restaurants charge less than your sister in law. She is taking the 'P'.

I’d rather not celebrate Christmas if it involves charging friends and family to eat or indeed being charged. We should all cut our cloth to our means. Some can afford to hire a castle and a chef, others can afford mince pies on Boxing Day. Both should be celebrated as the most important thing is to share your love for each other - isn’t that the spirit of Christmas or has that simple message got lost in a frenzy of cheap booze, Black Friday tat and muffin top inducing guzzling.

My 23 year old twins and I went to friends for Christmas lunch and we’d agreed to contribute financially. There were 10 of us for the day with plenty of food and alcohol - it cost us £10 each!!!!

Ugh...hate people like this. Went for a weekend away with gfs not long ago and one of the girls, tight as you like, did the food shop and charged £20 for eggs and bread. She also tried to take home food and drink other people brought. GIVE her £50 & no more and even at that you're being very generous!!!

Never been a fan of money changing hands in the family for exactly this kind of reason. We have started contributing to the food itself, ie one family brings starter, the other pudding, one family on cheese, everyone brings some booze etc. Less room for issue and the cost is still split . I wouldn’t pay OP, pay the £50 that was agreed. If she demands then ask for her to detail what the 100% hike in the cost is for.

May have been said already, but ask for a breakdown of the costs. Then pay what you think is reasonable. £5 per head or less?
Honestly, some people...🙄

I'd pay the £50 less your cost for alcohol you brought, and I'd explain why (this was the agreed cost, which had included booze).
My family take turns hosting, so nobody is charged as it's their turn every 3 years. We do contribute some items if we're not hosting (We brought the ham this year)

@mathanxiety we just do an online order between us and split the cost, all gets delivered day before xmas eve so means I can prep and get organised before the meal, that isn't really any different to people bringing stuff along. I dont see it as charging, just as splitting the cost.

If I just decided on an amount per person that was more than the cost of food itself that would be cheeky.

As I host I do contribute more as I do gift bags/crackers which cost around £5 per person plus provide champagne and whatever spirits I have. I also do all the cooking and preparation. If a family member hosted and couldnt afford the extras I would happily contribute to those also though.

I do think that the posters scoffing at the idea of charging family are being a bit unkind.

I’m part of a huge family (both parents are one of 5 siblings). All of their siblings are married with at least two children each. Then there’s the grandparents, great grandparents and now that my cousins are that bit older their partners and kids - the great grandchildren are also part of the mix! So anyone offering to host would be doing so at an astronomical cost to themselves.

Typically a discussion is had and someone will host a four course meal (decided on in advance) and they will source the food/drink then divide the costs. This is not because they are grabby, they don’t make a profit from it and everyone is perfectly happy with the arrangement.

As a super large family we are not all together often and Christmas is one of the rare occasions when we are. No one complains or thinks the hosts should pay and I agree!

I fully agree with what @BrieAndChilli said, it hit the nail on the head. Families whose individual members simply can’t afford to pay to host the entire clan simply pool their resources if the want to spend the day together.

Sticking £20 in the pot is no different to turning up with all the prepped veg, dessert or alcohol. Either bringing items or contributing cash are both fine, but great aunt Marge might rather give a bit of cash than go to the supermarket in all the mad shopping rush to buy bottles of wine. That’s her call!

I'm not getting this "I pay for everything and wouldn't invite them if I couldn't afford it" vibe. So you'd rather have a meal just for yourselves and leave your single/ widowed/ divorced members of your family to be on their own. As I said. I'm quite happy to contribute to Christmas dinner and stay in my daughter's house for three days (Christmas Eve until the day after Boxing Day) than be all by myself because she can't afford to do a massive dinner for everyone!

Sod that! Tell her you’ll send her the original agreed amount minus the alcohol that had originally been included then do Christmas at a pub in future inviting everyone but then it leaves it up to them. How terrible!!!

I thought it was Delia Smith!! Not a chance I’d pay a penny, some total cheeky fuckers today x

This year 2020 go to a lovely pub with your family and pay less! First time I hosted Christmas dinner for the extended family, I simply said; bring your own drinks, so you get what you want! I would not have hosted Christmas dinner if I could not afford it! One year we all got together for leftovers and snacks and everyone brought something along too. I would want to see her workings in this one( I spent about £5 per person!)
..lol....and her family drank the booze??? Hahaha. Ok so you have 'spent ' the money you were going to give her....oh dear.....hahaha....or shall we say ho ho ho!!!

Omg! This is mind blowing to me! I’ve never heard anything like it before !

I bet she overspent on other areas of the festivities she's broke.

In my experience it’s quite often the better off who are the tightest with money and friends I’ve known who are least well off who’d give the shirt of their back.

^iamyourequal BTW I have well off friends who rotate Christmas dinner around 3 households in their family. They are all massive foodies so the meal costs a lot per head. The host actually prepares an itemised bill to give a breakdown of the costs! I know this as one year my friend was commenting that her sister had spend £60 just on cheese. Each to their own I guess.^

Now why would they do this? Do they take turns to host but charge their friends as well? This concept is alien to me. I have never come across this with any friends or family ever. Why would I tell my guests how much I've spent on cheese or whatever?

I do get the explanation of large extended families who want to get together but not have the costs fall on to one person and can understand it but these people are well off so why?

Heck, how expensive! We hosted New Year’s Eve. Did a big buffet for 12 people and had tons left over including joints of meat and other hot food cooked that day, tons of sweet things and lots of other savoury things, bread rolls, crisps, dips, breadsticks etc and tins of chocs etc. It cost us £100 and we just asked people to bring there own drinks but not to pay or bring drinks for us etc. And that was a lot of food! No idea how charging £500 total was arrived at for her. She’ll be making a huge profit from her own family. How does she not feel terrible about it?!

50 pounds for 4 people for Christmas dinner was reasonable.

You agreed to it
Whether you ate a lot or not is by the by
Where she sourced this is irrelevant
I'd happily save myself the huge effort of sourcing and cooking and serving and not relaxing and clearing up for a family of 4 for 50 quid.

Whether people can grasp the concept that others do this is also irrelevant.

However, 100 pounds is DOUBLE and unreasonable.

But 50 pounds... not bad for 4! If you didn't lift a bloody finger!

I used to do hosting of a massive family Xmas, with financial chipping in from BIL & SIL, MIL, other SIL & DN.

The reason being that XH & I invariably hosted because we had the biggest house. We also had small dc, so a PITA to travel. We also had - in me - definitely the best cook in the family.

Yes, people also brought food & drink, but non essential stuff (extra booze, mince pies, snacks for buffet table). I wouldn't have trusted any of that flakey lot to actually remember anything that was important - & who wants to be suddenly sourcing all the veg on Xmas Day because their ditziest IL has forgotten they agreed to bring it?!

Well off SIL & BIL made a reasonably substantial financial contribution, which they were very happy to do (because they weren't having to host which they would both have hated) & which would be discreetly tucked into their Xmas card. Less well off SIL probably slipped one of us a token tenner. MIL would do similar & be firmly handed it back because she was the family matriarch & had done her share for the preceding 30 years...

Everyone was financially solvent, so it being a discreet voluntary bung was fine - XH & I could have afforded not to have anyone contribute. Equally, none of the relatives would have felt that was quite fair - it was always me & XH who hosted, for a decade!

If we'd all been skint I'm pretty sure everyone would still have preferred to cut things back a bit & put contributions on a more formal footing, rather than forego a big lovely Xmas dinner.

Anyway OP - I'm with everyone else pretty much. Send her the originally agreed 50 quid & draw a line. Do something else next year!

I know mrshoho. I was pretty shocked myself to hear about it. It’s the only real life example I know of. I was dying to ask my friend how it had all come about (But didn’t). I reckon it may have been that when they started it, not all the family members were able to take their turn to host, so it would have seemed fair to split the cost of the food instead, given it’s a very expensive meal.

The only thing I’m certain is that it wouldn’t have been my friend starting it in grounds of being tight, as she is very generous!