To not make Christmas dinner dairy free??

[Bellyblueboy]

Very early I know! I cater Christmas dinner every year for my family. I am single and child free but I host for my parents, brother, sister and their families. My parents stay with me for a few nights. It’s a lot of work.

My nine year old nephew was diagnosed as lactose intolerant this year. So of course I will be researching this and making sure his starter, main and desert is lactose free. I even thought of putting little flags in bowls that are lactose free. I was going to order little flags with a picture of a cow crossed out! Make it fun.

my SIL has said it will be unfair if there is food on the table that he can’t eat so the whole meal has to be dairy free.

I order Black Forest gateau every year - my parents love it. Apparently no. He never eats it - I get kid friendly deserts for the four children.

I am a lazy cook - I get the whole meal from marks and Spencer! Prepared mash the lot. I am now told I can’t do this as there are milk products in the mashed and roast potatoes. It would be a huge amount of work to do everything from scratch, I don’t want that to be my Christmas Day and my cooking skills aren’t up to it.

I have said no - this is what I am doing. My brother is now annoyed that i won’t bend to his wife’s demands and have ruined Christmas. I had said he is welcome to come to my house and do the cooking, or host. Or eat at his house then come for coffee and presents. He has told on me! My mum is upset that she won’t have all her family round her at Christmas - dad was ill this year and they have been looking forward to a relaxing Christmas! Agh. It’s only September.

rant over. But honestly give it to me straight am I a selfish child hating spinster! Would you all accommodate this???

Belyblueboy take all the mash out of the recipe and buy aunt bessies roast potatoes. I wouldnt invite bro and sil again after this christmas. I know how stressful it is having done the christmas hosting and catering for over 35 years for the whole family! big sis was the worst, she brought wine only and took it away if it wasnt drunk. even half finished bottles were taken back. she was the golden girl like your brother and after meal mother would come into kitchen and start making a big bag of food for big sis to take home so she wouldnt have to cook on boxing day. why do you have people staying over during all this? that is not fair if they are not going to help in the preparations. to all the naysayer, ignore them!! They may very well have never catered for the whole family and just go to someone else's house!!!

SIL is being a penis.

Seemed like a good idea from a pp to make the gateau boozy/say it is and therefore it's the adult dessert, and have something else for the kids. Would that work?

I have, in the past, done a dairy free, egg free, nut free Christmas dinner so that all of my family can eat and share the same meal. You really can't taste the difference. The only concessions I made were bread sauce (I did 2 lots, one with dairy and one without) and cauliflower cheese. It is much easier than you think it is! And I was catering for full blown allergies, so I thought that dialling 999 on Christmas Day would put a slight dampener on the festivities.... Perfectly fair to have extra items for the adults that the children won't eat, but personally I'd do my best to accommodate everyone to eat the same meal. It sounds like you are doing that. It's all about compromise, and not just you compromising - your family need to compromise and contribute too.

OP, your brother and SIL are massive CF's. Massive.
I can't imagine not paying anything towards my family's xmas dinner, especially if coming with a partner and children, or not bringing any food that I've cooked to contribute, then dictating a DF dinner for all guests, just because my son had different needs. No way in hell.
Please, please do not pander to these ungrateful and extremely entitled people. If anyone in your family continues to challenge you, just repeat what you said - DB and Amy can bring all the food, host at their place, or come for coffee. Or better yet, just tell them to sort their own Xmas from now own.

Omg op I can't believe some of the responses you have received on this thread. Tbh, there is now tension around Christmas and it will spoil things for you. Your family have taken advantage of your kindness and generosity and sometimes the more you do for people, the less respect they seem to have for you. Let your brother and sil host their own meal. What a shock it will be for them to have to put their hands in their own pockets for once and do the work.

I know you value your nephews/nieces but I also catered Halloween for years and my gs's later told me they wanted me to give up years ago! Lol, wish they had told me.

I have catered Christmas for over thirty years. Don't let this be you! It is hard work and stressful and we do cook from scratch but this year as there are less of us I will be using more M and S. All that has put me off before has been the queues of others trying to enjoy their Christmas without spending all day in the kitchen!

I wish I had a sibling like you op. Your dm needs to appreciate you more as well because you are kind and generous. I cannot believe the comment of the year from a poster criticising your "flags" as some kind of disability discrimination. Only on MN.

Nah, I wouldn't let two people ruin Christmas for everyone including Adam and OP. She clearly loves hosting everyone and having them all together.

Seriously, if Adam's house isn't dairy-free then yours most certainly doesn't need to be!

You're doing some perfect options for him

They either accept that or stay at home!

YANBU. I'm coeliac. I don't insist on everyone having a gluten-free Christmas meal just because of me.
I know it's a bit different for kids but so long as his dairy/lactose-free options are thing he really likes then he'll have a great time. At nine, he's old enough to understand that there are things he can't eat because it will make him unwell if he does.
Your SIL is being totally unreasonable. You've given them various options if the catering you're offering isn't to their liking - but honestly they're being completely ridiculous.

I think your BIL and SIL have a god damn cheek asking you to have a complete dairy free Xmas if they don’t even have a dairy free household OP!

Your idea of using flags is a great idea! At the age of 9 he needs to know what he can and can’t eat and he should be getting used to realising that there will be things in this world he can’t eat unfortunately.

Your WhatsApp message is perfect. You have offered solutions to their concerns. Christmas is for everyone not just your 9 year old nephew.

Wait What!? There's such a thing as Halloween dinner? I need this in my life.

Actually, some M+S Xmas turkeys come pre-basted in buttermilk, so they'd be out too!

Op whatever happens you’re an angel and even though I know you said it works you doing it at yours, they need to hear the phrase ‘if it’s easier you can host?’ You are amazing! (From one non cook who would never host Christmas to you!)

You are not being unreasonable, but since it is Christmas I would try to make it fun and let the child preorder very special things and I would have an abundance of choices for him even if I had just ordered them so that he will not feel any sense of deprivation. I think generousity in spirit and cooperation is key her. SIL is being silly, but I get she is feeling very protective.

I was going to say it’s not really hard, my husband is lactose intolerant and I just make everything with dairy alternatives or lactofree product.
but
Your SIL is totally BU. I’d tell her she’s welcome to host and do the cooking but at your house you will cater for DN but you’re not otherwise changing your menu.

Hello,

If you weren’t accommodating him at all, then that would be unkind, but you are, so no yanbu.

M and S have loads of dairy free options (plant kitchen), it’s up to the parents to police what he’s eating, not you. He has an intolerance, not an allergy, there is a huge difference.

I would put his food on a separate table cloth, get lots of chocolate/treats, honestly dairy free cake/chocolate is really good now. Don’t make a big deal of it, just say “child your food is on the gold table cloth”.

Oggs cakes are really, really good, there vegan but no one has clue when they have them.

Honestly don’t stress about it, just tell them you will accommodate him, but you can’t make the whole meal dairy free.

She is feeling like a demanding, greedy pig more like. If she was protective she should ban dairy in her own house.

My daughter and I are both lactose intolerant and we just pop a chewable lactase pill before we eat dairy - we get them from Amazon (we take LactoJoy but there are loads of options). Works 100% of the time.

I do this every year for the multiple people in my close family who are dairy free. It’s no big deal to me.

HOWEVER, when I accept an invitation from someone who is graciously hosting and providing food I don’t kick off and refuse to go because I don’t have complete control over the whole menu!!! That would be bonkers.

You are catering to his dietary needs. That’s all you need to do. They’re being abominably rude.

YANBU. You're providing a full meal with appropriate swaps. You're not refusing to cater, nor offering him a tin of beans saying that he's fed.

They are cheeky and hypocritical fuckers because they don't contribute to the festivities any year, because there's no sound reason to inconvenience you through time, effort and expense to make everyone DF for the meal, and mostly because they don't even keep him DF free anyway!

DS had multiple allergies as an infant. I used to buy a nice stuffed bird roast for DH and DS had chicken drumsticks. My tolerance to dairy is low so I watch what/ how much I eat, but it generally doesn't affect people catering for me with a normal range of food in that I can eat processed dairy such as cooked, butter or cheese, but neat milk is out. If he's regularly eating trigger foods, that can risk damage to his digestive system in the long run. They're deeply unreasonable to be lax themselves but impose overzealous restrictions on others catering.

When the pleasure of the neices and nephews is outweighed by the effort of hosting, get booking those plane tickets!

SIL is being precious and ridiculous. My bet is she is imagining problems and in reality Adam won’t give a monkeys about having his own food, as long as it’s nice. You sound like a fab auntie and host.

Agree vegan pizza cheese is grim so would swap that for something else.

You're fine OP. Although strong Cinderella vibes from your family. I can't blame you for thinking about stepping back from this after this year.
On a side note, I am astonished to find out my gut rot after too much dairy is now a disability and that I must be beset with "grief about my condition" 😂

I think the SIL and FB are both entitled dicks. They don’t give a shit about x-contamination in their own home or son seeing others eat dairy but suddenly at OP’s it’s an issue.

Have you even RTFT? I doubt you are even half as good an aunt and sibling as OP is.

Just read everything and think you are more than fair—actually your are heroic. I suspect sil and brother are using this as some sort of dig or rivalry. Your plans are wonderful and generous.

@Bellyblueboy

I’ve read all your posts, which are mainly responding to negative/critical replies, and would urge you to look at the AIBU poll results, which currently stands at 96% of 2100+ votes that say YANBU. What you’ve planned sounds absolutely fine to me, and your nephew’s parents are big ol’ hypocrites if they feed him Doritos and have a fridge full of dairy at home.

If they end up sulking and not coming, can I come instead? I won’t stay the night and I’ll do all the washing up afterwards.

YANBU. My mum and I are both coeliac and my parents do Christmas dinner for us all still. We don’t do all gf! We have a lovely range of things and if gluten can be avoided then it is, but we have a gf and normal bread sauce for example. I’d never expect my siblings and dad to not have something because I’m coeliac!