AIBU to start a list of banned topics for Christmas Dinner with relatives! (Light hearted)

[jennytheonionslayer]

I thought it would be fun to create a list of banned conversation topics for Christmas get togethers, I will start but feel free to add to this list!

Politics
Covid Jabs
NHS
Setting up complicated gadgets
Casual lazy racism
Misogyny
Brexit,
Old people
Young people
Middle aged people
Boris
Gender stereotypes
Gender fluidity
Immigration

I'm sure I have missed loads!

Over to you!

Just seen gender is already on your list

After reading this little lot I'm going to stay in the kitchen!

Whether the Christmas dinner and accompaniments are homemade or not.

We’re hosting Inlaws his year and the sheer level of obsessive interest from my MIL in where we’re buying all the food from/how are we cooking it/will the turkey fit in the oven etc is mind-boggling and suffocating in equal measure.

I’ve had helpful offers to make homemade cranberry/gravy/bread sauce herself, the loan of their hostess trolley (not envy) and even for her to make the roast potatoes and bring them round for us, in case we ‘don’t have room in the oven’ or it’s too much for us to cope with.

I’m thirty fucking seven and DH is 40.

That feels better!

In my household:
Brexit, because my mum and in laws think it is a good idea because of "sovereignty", but everyone else realises it is stupid.
Religion, my MIL has become a bit of a bible thumper and if it was not banned my brother would surgically pick her apart every time she brought up god/Jesus.
Politics in general (unless just general agreement of how useless the government is).
Bread Sauce, my in laws and husband's sisters think it is the food of the gods, my husband and I hate it but will still serve it for them (we are hosting).

Getting a GP appointment.

Everybody seems to think that their own GP is uniquely bad and goes on at length about how awful their GP practice is. I want to shout at them that everybody in the whole country is suffering the same problem and it's not because GPs are lazy and are just sitting at home raking in the money (somebody has told me this). It's also not because the NHS as a whole is rubbish (it's also weird the way British people imagine that our health system is unique. It's not. Good quality health care free at the point of service is now the norm in Europe, and most European countries pity the state of ours at the moment). It is because successive governments (accelerating under Tory governments) have been running it down.

It makes me incredibly sad and angry and I am in danger of ranting on about it, so it's best to avoid as Christmas chit chat. Sadly, many people choose it as small talk though.

The GP system is in absolute crisis all over the country and it's not because the NHS is 'broken'. It could work perfectly well, but It has been deliberately dismantled.

Anything about Christmas 2022.

@Pemba - looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the same way. You'll get older yourself one day.

I had forgotten anything connected to my job which is medical and often involves complex ethical issues.

There was the year we went to the ILs and they spent the whole meal discussing an issue in the news in a way that made my job out to be the equivalent of axe murdering.

Later they asked me for medical advice

@luckylavender well I already am older relatively, maybe older than you, who knows?

I'd hope, as I age, not to change in the way my parents appear to have done though, it makes me sad. You know nothing about our family, you're just virtue signalling.

The government
The Labour Party
Various politicians
Margaret Thatcher
Immigration
Lack of discipline and todays kids
A good smack!
Anything ending in ism really
The neighbours
Covid
Death in general
Ww2
Ww3
Bad manners
The cost of living
Gps and lack of appointments
The TV licence
Bone idle people
The bin day being changed over Christmas and New Year.
Im sure theres more Ive missed!!

There are no topics which are banned for the adults - although I do expect conversations to be kind and to respect others opinions and feelings. But the children!!!!! My God if I have to hear another monologue on the latest computer game and what level they have got to and what they have earned/bought I will go nuts! They are 8 and 11 and I have a rule that conversations have to be interesting for everyone.... Not just the person speaking.

We'll be at my parents and my brother will be there.

He'll possibly rattle on about his new favourite subject "how I've worked all my life and now do fuck all at work and get paid well for it". Mate your a couple of years older than me, the way you go on, you'd think you're 87!!

My dad? Fuck knows, but he'll always be right whatever it is.

Me? I'll smile and wave, get to 3pm and depending on the reading on the bollocksometer, will take drugs that get me off my face (prescription of course!!), wash them down with a glass of wine, sit in the chair and dribble.

brexit
vaccination
wirecard
andré rieu

@Pemba - virtue signalling? I'm quite old now and have come to realise that life moves on a pace and it's sometimes difficult to keep up. Things I would have criticised older generations for is now easier to put in context. I also think that at this time we should be glad we have family and can share Christmas together. We should cherish this, denied to many.

I agree with many of the above....

For me it would be...

In-depth detail about the lives of their friends who I don’t know very well including updates on every health condition their friends have.

Who has died (people I don’t know) or been diagnosed with cancer or terminally ill etc (not pleasant conversation at dinner).

How wonderful my sil (dh sister) and her partner and kids are and how they work SO hard and therefore are enjoying a quiet, relaxed Christmas just on their own. They then proceed to list all the lovely things they’ve done on their lovely quiet day while I’ve spent all day slaving in the kitchen and am back to work in a couple of days. (Inwardly I want to scream why can’t they take a turn at hosting you at Christmas so I get a break).

House prices and the cost of living nowadays and how previously it was easier to buy a house on one salary. We had a big “discussion“ about this last time and we were told it was much harder in their day despite them living in massive houses bought on one salary.

Casual racism...fil particularly bad after a drink and gets embarrassing as my dc will pull them up on it. Also homophobia.

In-depth detail of their pre Christmas build up (all retired), drinks out, meals out, walks, theatre, meeting friends while I have been working and getting Christmas ready and buying all of their presents as well as my own. They just rock up and get served all day and night.

How wonderful my dh is for “cooking “ Xmas dinner when really he is just helping and has done jack shit of any preparation or present buying before that day.

After a heated discussion with my pig ignorant BIL, that ended with him hurling a stream of abuse at me and me leaving, the importance of education.

@CrapSticks

Budgies Work The shagability of Boris and Trump (who would you rather sleep with etc) Covid

Shagability of Johnson and Trump?

That would be a short discussion in this house, both of them are utterly repellent.

Well it's just us this year thank goodness. So I'd like to ban all topics relating to roblox. (Dcs) or lcoa drovers (DH). They would probably like to ban all topcis of furture holidays we probably cannot take (me).

-local drivers.

Casual racism...fil particularly bad after a drink and gets embarrassing as my dc will pull them up on it.

Omg, this.

One SIL and her husband are terrible for this. I sit there wincing when they casually use the P-word and find it necessary to mention the ethnic origin, usually using a derogatory term, of anyone who has pissed them off in any way who happens not to be white.

I won't tolerate it and can't keep my mouth shut. After a couple of heated arguments, I have adopted a strategy of saying calmly "Excuse me, but I find this really offensive" and going to talk to someone else, anyone else, in another room.

When one of the family had a house that had just a massive kitchen/living room, so everyone was in the same room, I used to go out into the garden for a smoke.

Luckily, one of my SILs feels the same and is also a smoker. We are often both found outside when the racist talk starts. When DP was alive, he used to come out and tell us when it was safe to go back in.

Racism - my I laws like to mention often that wasn’t many black people when they were young . I’m like what’s your point .
Politics - I’ve a few relatives who much as I have a lot of the same opinion I don’t want to bang on about Boris all the time .
Obviously covid

**
I won't tolerate it and can't keep my mouth shut. After a couple of heated arguments, I have adopted a strategy of saying calmly "Excuse me, but I find this really offensive" and going to talk to someone else, anyone else, in another room.

Yeah I know what you mean I’ve said it’s offensive please change the subject but they think how can you be offended if your not black .

When we will have another baby...never DH had a vasectomy when DD2 was 4 months so you can sush