Where are all the threads about in laws who starve their guests?!

[SmellyOldPartridgeinaPearTree]

These are a mumsnet Christmas tradition! There were none last year but I could see why, due to covid. But this year people are going and staying with in laws left, right and centre. And yet no one has been served one meal a day of half a roast potato and a wafer thin slice of ham, resulting in a break out to the chippy and the local spar for secret supplies 2 days in

To be fair, men need more calories a day than women Surely this can be regulated by the guests themselves? I can't believe there are people who think it's ok to give women tiny portions whilst giving men huge ones. I'm glad I don't have to go to your house for a meal!

I wouldn't plate up someone else's meal anyway tbh. I'd hate to be asked "How hungry are you/how many potatoes do you want?" etc for fear of looking greedy/attracting comments about my appetite. We leave everything out in the kitchen and people help themselves. We ensure there is more than enough and always have leftovers.

The poster who got given a plate of peas, I'd have walked out!

The calories thing is irrelevant. Most of us consume far too many calories at Christmas anyway. Why should women be regulated while men are allowed to blithely overindulge?

Christmas is not the time to put people on a diet by stealth (if there ever is one). So inappropriate!

Yes, well as I said before obese bil doesn't get put on a stealth diet.
And I was always thin and very open about liking food/healthy appetite, so no excuse imo.

obese bil doesn't get put on a stealth diet.

Men are supposed to take up space (both literally and figuratively). Women aren't .

@PineappleMojito

Ohhh this thread brings back memories! Covid has meant we haven’t stayed at FIL’s in almost 2 years. FIL eats maybe once a day, never has much food in the fridge and would never think to buy food in for guests. He lives rural so you have to drive to go to a shop. Yet if we bring food with us, he eats it, all the while commenting on how weird it is that we need to eat so often. I take medication that I need to eat with - it makes me feel ill if I take it on an empty stomach, but FIL’s take is that it’s all in my head

Something is always broken in the house - the toilet flush was broken for AN ENTIRE YEAR, he had a really dangerous old gas stove which he insisted was perfectly fine, but ended up burning half his kitchen down. Only then would he replace it or admit it was unsafe . He had a broken kettle for ages that you had to hold down the button or it wouldn’t work, and he made this elaborate contraption out of cutlery and mugs to hold the button in place! We bought him a new kettle and he was like “but the old one worked fine”. Argh! And yeah…his idea of cleaning is hit and miss. The bathroom (shudder)

I do not miss going there at all and staying at a hotel when we visit is the one “new normal” I’m happy about!

Holy crap, either my Dads got even more secret kids than the one I know about or... worse, theres MORE THAN ONE OF HIM.

Honestly I could write that about him, word for word, kettle n' all!