To feel guilty about ordering prepared Xmas dinner

[merrygoround51]

Just that. I orderEd a slap up meal from a local fine food shop /deli. Everything is cooked or prepped.

Cost is quite high but we can afford it but I have a niggling feeling that I should be doing what my mother, grandmother and aunties do/did - ie martyr themselves for 3 days prepping Christmas and Stephens day dinner. Maybe it’s particularly Irish but an exhausted, wrung out mother almost seems part of Christmas and I feel like I am somehow letting the side down with my laziness and am tempted to give in and prep it all.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers! ENJOY IT!

Just think of it as helping the economy & give yourself a break! If it’s an independent/small business you might be helping them survive. See now you’ve gone from being a bad person to a really good one ( not that you were bad anyway!)

Ha ha @nancy75 I love that.

Yes I am clearly a philanthropist now

Just enjoy it, I just do a roast with pigs in blankets to be honest, don't do any prep the day before, just bung it in and chop the veg and then steam that. Absolutely no point in being a martyr for the sake of it, you have a viable option that will taste the same (no offense, but may even be nicer...), and you can relax rather than spend an inordinate amount of time doing arbitrary prep just because you feel you should.

In the nicest possible way, stop being mental you’ve done a profoundly sensible thing, and it’s a gift not only to yourself but to everyone else who gets to enjoy happy, relaxed you at Christmas. Far more people should consider doing this!

It's been a rough year for everybody, a slap up dinner where you aren't spending hours cooking is a brilliant idea.

Life is to short. Enjoy your Christmas and time with your family rather than being chained to a hot stove.

Yeah, nah. You're living the life, enjoy! Your grandmother would have totally done this if it was an option

The only unreasonable thing in your post is feeling guilty about it!

You're putting food on the table, anyone who complains about that deserves to have nothing but a plate of soggy sprouts for their christmas lunch.

That’s true @Gardeniaofdelights I am haunted by memories of my half mad granny and mum come Christmas morning and who could blame them really - all that work and the rest of us sitting back with feet up

The reality is never Mick and his turkey in Gavin and Stacey - it’s more Barbara in the Royle family !

enjoy it why not i wish i could splurge on a ready made christmas dinner but with 7 for dinner this year would come to the same as a week away somewhere

@isseys4xmastinselcats We are 6 and it’s not too bad really - 230 for starter main dessert (but I will need to buy a 2nd dessert), cheese and mince pies.

I'd love that! I don't even eat meat but am stuck with the cooking

Bon appetit!

After several onths of running myself ragged at work and home, a couple of weeks ago my DH said 'enough already' and proclaimed he was ordering the whole Christmas Day shebang for six people from Cook. I felt terribly guilty for some reason, then dicided to embrace the fuckit. I'm not martyring myself on the gas hob for anyone.

YANBU - Why not, if you can afford it.
But also YABU - theres no need for it to be 3 days of prep nightmare for one person.

There's a middle ground.

Yabu. It's not Christmas if you aren't swigging sherry by 8.30am, panicking that you forgot to remove the packet of giblets by 9.30am, screaming about the lack of oven space by 11.30am, sitting down to Christmas dinner and belatedly realising you left the parsnips in the oven, and then wishing you hadnt bothered with your home made Christmas pudding cos no one is going to eat it.

If you order it all prepared, you may as well not bother. Just get a KFC like they do in Japan.

My MIL is a good cook, and PIL also used to be very careful with money when they were younger.

However, in recent years when we have seen them for Christmas (at ours or theirs), we have ordered in all M&S pre-prepared stuff and split the cost.

MIL is more than capable of cooking it from scratch (as am I - just about!) but she said she wants to spend the day relaxing and spending time with the family rather than peeling veg, and I agree!

Short version: definitely do it!

Yes, if you can afford it you're supporting a local business at a time when they really need it by buying food in. Don't feel bad!

If you like the food, and happy to pay for it. You will still have to chuck it in the oven and heat it up, and plates, and laying the table. That counts as cooking!
If someone complain just tell them, next year you plan and cook the menu!

Do not be a martyr! Have a bloody good time

Have done pre-prepared roast for 20 years after years of my mum being tearful and stressed over a single meal - bloody love Christmas now!

Don’t feel guilty. My Mum and her partner order an Indian take out every Christmas now because it’s only the two of them and they’ve had their years spent stressing over Christmas dinners so it’s time to relax!

No harm in it at all. However I don’t understand why making the meal would require three days of prep. I have never done anything until the day.

I wish somewhere local done this...I would
Most definitely buy it!