To think referring to guests at Christmas lunch as waifs and strays is extremely rude

[notawaif]

I know I am BU to think about this in July, so don’t judge me on that.

I’ve seen it on a couple of threads and heard it in RL too, on FB and so on. AIBU for thinking it’s rude and condescending towards a guest?

I completely agree OP, it's patronising.

Waifs and strays, hangers on, 'taking people in', 'I can't see anyone alone for Christmas'. All these phrases/ descriptions infer that the guest is needy and should be grateful for what they're given. Orphan is the worst, and apparently said with affection too!

If you say these terms 'affectionately', it might be worth thinking a little more about how your intended recipient feels. You might think they'll take it as you intended, but listen to those on this thread who state otherwise. Nobody is going to tell you to your face that they think you're patronising.

Yes it is rude.

What strikes me is that Christmas is a unique occasion because all the shops, cafes and leisure centres are shut. If you are, for some reason, alone on your birthday or Valentine's Day or a royal wedding, or Bonfire Night or some other festive getting-together day, you can go and do something you really want to do, like having a swim and sauna. Christmas Day is different. Everything is geared around that one family meal, and, annoyingly, people always ask you, from November onwards, what you will be doing. That's why invitations can get given out out of a sense of doing the right thing.

But I've personally never even heard the waifs and strays expression used about guests, so it can't be that ubiquitous. And some hosts might just be using it, when talking about their Christmas, in a short-hand way, to describe any guest who isn't related so that they don't have to go into a rigmarole of explaining the ins and outs of how they know everyone. Some people are boring with language and can never think of alternative and meaning-enhancing ways of saying a thing, but instead talk in cliches. (Ha ha, it always has to be OH and DP on mumsnet, lol!)
Some hosts might feel bountiful, but I'd say ignore that fact, and turn Christmas Day into a chance to do something positive for somebody at the table who might be related to the host but who maybe is feeling uncomfortable because they don't get on with an in-law, or something, and use the day as an opportunity to make it pleasant for them. A guest might, in a jocular way, be a waif to the host, but to her niece they might be the only person in the house she wants to talk to.

I get what you're saying OP. The person is alone, so they must be pitied and given a pity invite so "at least they have someone" at Christmas - waifs and strays = no one who cares about them.

Totally different to we love having you around and if you don't have any plans it would be great if you came for Christmas lunch.

I think you missed the joke

Inviting you for lunch isn't a "charitable handout" it's hospitality. Sneering at it and over-thinking their motives is really bizarre and prickly. Very, very odd. Stay home and enjoy your own fridge.

Oh no.

My whole life I have been saying "waifs and straifs"

This is like that episode of the IT crowd

Not at all. It's just an expression. One of my best Christmas days was when my DH was away in the Army, and our neighbour invited DD and I to her "waifs and strays" Christmas dinner. About 10 of us turned up and had a very jolly day with her and her family - there were a couple of elderly neighbours, a couple of international students, a few singles with no families. The kids all put on a little concert and we all had a singalong of Christmas carols. I didn't mind at all that I was a "waif / stray", it was just a lovely day.

I’ve heard of several older people, usually widowed, who find it quite hard to turn down evidently well meant invitations for C.Day, which they’d really rather spend on their own, doing and eating whatever they like in peace and quiet - it’s just one day after all - but would-be hosts can be quite insistent - ‘You can’t be alone on Christmas Day!’

So they feel bad for having to be equally politely insistent that they’ll be perfectly happy on their own, thank you very much anyway - even when they suspect that the people in question think they’re poor old things to be pitied, it’d be a kindness to invite them.

DB used to refer to the group of people (of which he was one) who used to get invited for Sunday lunches every week at his church as "Students and Scroungers". And he wasn't a student!

I think you're taking it too seriously OP.

@Guineapigbridge

Inviting you for lunch isn't a "charitable handout" it's hospitality. Sneering at it and over-thinking their motives is really bizarre and prickly. Very, very odd. Stay home and enjoy your own fridge.

This exactly. If someone doesn’t want a meal or to stay they can always say, “no thanks”. Usually, surely, people coming for Christmas that you didn’t know would have suggested they’d like somewhere to join with others and not to be on their own. I don’t think inviting someone suggests pity or looking down on them. It gives some options.

You seem angry about nothing OP and if that all you have to be put out about you’re in a fortunate position. It feels like you’re looking to feel insulted.

Some of these are even worse than ‘waifs and strays’.

For people insistent I’m overthinking it - I’m really not, hence why hate speech is a thing. Language is revealing, language is powerful and language hurts.

I don’t care if it’s a “joke”, I’m sure historically a lot of words we now censor as being offensive were said as ‘jokes’ or ‘harmlessly’, I don’t care if it’s said with “affection” because what the person saying it is feeling isn’t affection towards you as an individual it’s affection towards the position they are in, as charitable giver.

Visiting other people for Christmas can be uncomfortable, hence I have only done it once and escaped as soon as politely possible to do so.

For those who didn’t see, I’m not on my own now, thanks, have a partner and a baby. Magically I am no longer a waif or a stray, except actually I am still exactly the same person I always was!

cherry if you are reading anger here then honestly I don’t know how - disagreeing with somebody doesn’t = anger.

It isn’t ‘nothing’, though, how you are perceived is not nothing, it’s everything really.

Depends on the person it's said about
That was me for many years as I'm estranged from family, I didn't care, it broke the ice with people I didn't know in a jokey way, hell I usually said it about myself lol
I was the Christmas orphan, the blow in guest, the long lost cousin, the illegitimate child

@notawaif

cherry if you are reading anger here then honestly I don’t know how - disagreeing with somebody doesn’t = anger.

It isn’t ‘nothing’, though, how you are perceived is not nothing, it’s everything really.

If you perceive something as rude, you generally get angry about it. That’s normal. Trending so carefully with every possible word that people are afraid to speak isn’t normal. People use colloquialisms socially. People use teasing references to those they know well.

My daughter calls me fatty sometimes. As in, “Hello fatty what’s for lunch?” That’s not because I’m fat or she’s got body dysmorphia. It’s just a silly term of endearment. If I was obese I might feel differently, but she wouldn’t be using it then.

A call from our son asking whether I can do supper for most of the team in two hours, after they’ve finished training might see me telling them it was lucky I had 3kg of mince to feed to feed a dozen waifs and strays. That’s not because I see them as a problem, in need of some weird charitable support or as incapable of deciding to go back to base, if the prefer. It’s because it’s fun and I don’t mind dashing to the butchers quickly or throwing a vat of chilli together whilst my husband brings additional chairs in.

How others perceive you is a whole lot less important than how you perceive yourself. I suspect that’s the issue. Mountains out of molehills.

Oh come on cherry, you understand the difference between ‘waifs and strays’ - a bunch of young men from a sports team and ‘waifs and strays’ - single women at Christmas.

Likewise there is a huge difference between terms of endearment between direct family members and very close friends and those you are not close to: one thing for a DD to call you ‘fatty’ but would you seriously be all right with that from a shop assistant or a school mum? Then it would be extremely rude.

I’m saying here that referring to guests at Christmas time as ‘waifs and strays’ is rude, and all the above post does is stealth boast in any case.

It's said with affection, generally by people who are affectionate and generous people and enjoy their life, in my experience anyway.

We've always had waifs and strays at Christmas, and I've been one myself. It's a little joke, that's all. Just means someone on their own. It's a joke because it's a bit silly? Nobody is looking down on you. They're not imagining you sadly selling matches on the corner and then quietly expiring of tuberculosis if you don't receive the bounty of their honey roast parsnips. They're just thinking it would be nice if you came for dinner. You don't have to. It's only a dinner it's not Judgment Day.

If you don't want to go, don't go. That's okay too. Recognise you are making a choice about this.

No, I didn’t want to go, largely because I realised I was being invited because I was pitied and not because I was a friend

I feel some people are missing the point. Nobody is saying that being invited is patronising or rude, but if you actually use the term waifs and strays to describe the guest, that is rude.

It infers a sense of the invitee being pathetic, lonely, needing looking after. It might be said affectionately but this is how it makes people feel.

Calling a whole sports team waifs and strays can be taken as a joke as they are a TEAM, they are not waifs and strays as they come as a group. Using the term to a single person is like a joke tinged with pity.

I think also when I heard it for the first time, although I wasn’t a child, I wasn’t ‘adult’ enough for it not to sting a bit. In other words, joking about abandoned and neglected children to someone who is 19 and has been pretty much abandoned is obviously going to hurt like hell.

This exactly. If someone doesn’t want a meal or to stay they can always say, “no thanks”. Usually, surely, people coming for Christmas that you didn’t know would have suggested they’d like somewhere to join with others and not to be on their own.
I don’t think inviting someone suggests pity or looking down on them. It gives some options.

Exactly this

anyone who is happy to spend Christmas on their own can do so. For those of us who hated Christmas alone those invitations, when they came, were a lifeline

Hence why I’ll always invite people for Christmas. People can say no, but at least they know there’s a welcome place if they want it

Okay!

If you don't like these people, don't go to their house for Christmas. It seems like you have had a tough time and I'm sorry for it.

I personally will continue tickling my beloved and rather awe-inspiring jetsetting friend on her tummy and calling her a waif and stray when she comes to mine over Christmas. And she will anxiously make sure I am not alone on Thanksgiving, despite the fact I don't even know when it is. I'll take all the love and caring and kindness offered to me, gladly and with joy. If it doesn't spark joy for you, of course you must choose differently.

If I was obese I might feel differently, but she wouldn’t be using it then

Cherry you have just said exactly what notawaif is trying to communicate!

If you were obese your daughter would (hopefully) have the courtesy to recognise that it might be a little hurtful to refer to you as “fatty”. Even if she did mean it affectionately.

Similarly, if you are alone / lonely / bereaved/ have no family / are orphaned / are a care leaver , it can be hurtful to be referred to as a “waif or stray”. That is all.

There is definitely a level of "reading the room" needed with jokes like this. Definitely not an appropriate thing to say to a young person who is going through a rough time. I actually don't think my granny would have liked this either, the one time she did have Christmas lunch without family. Young guys who are all part of the same team or a jetsetting friend probably fine.

Thank you parallex!

I don’t think people understand I am NOT talking about very close friends here but colleagues and acquaintances and when younger the parents of friends who decided they ‘couldn’t see me alone at Christmas’