Xmas Day - Lunch at 4pm - AIBU

[Moonshine5]

Following heated debate and reading a variety of threads. What say you Mumsnet community?
🎅
AIBU - that's a ridiculous time for Christmas lunch
YANBU - perfectly normal you heathens (note this is a light-hearted thread)

We've mixed it up every year from 1pm to 9pm. I don't like schedules, basically these days I have a vague idea but then only start when I can be bothered. I suspect a day will come where neither of us can be bothered at all. Fortunately we've not hosted it for a while. 🤣

I’ve never eat Christmas ‘Lunch/Dinner’ before 3pm in over 50 years. I’m still peeling sprouts at 1pm.

Earlier the better (usually ends up being served around 1/2ish) otherwise I don't have room for the evening cheeseboard.

My dad gets up at the crack of dawn and gets cooking early for this reason - he wants to make sure there's enough room in the day for all the food!

1pm!! That is madness 🤣.

We’re normally still visiting family or pottering about at that time - but to be fair I’d call it Christmas dinner and not Christmas lunch. We eat about 5pm at a push.

4-5pm for us. Usually a late start in morning. Son (25) goes out with friends Christmas Eve so wants a lie in. Brunch with bubbles, open presents, walk (if dry) then prep and eat late afternoon or early evening. I guess could be different if you have young children or lots of different aged family members travelling to you. Think the earliest we are when with extended family was 3pm.

1pm for us then we can gorge on Christmas chocolate and relax in the afternoon. Had to serve later last year as one child was working and felt I hadn’t stopped cooking all day

5-6pm for us.

6am - Light breakfast of pastries, orange juice etc while opening presents.
11:30am - Brunch. Generally something like sausage sandwiches, along with Christmas snacky bits, chocolates etc throughout the afternoon
5-6pm - dinner (starter and main)
8pm - Dessert

WhamBamThankU · 19/11/2023 19:02

Throw a spanner in the works and have a Mexican Christmas complete with sombreros and moustaches like we did

¿Si, pero a qué hora es el almuerzo?

5-6pm for us.

6am - Light breakfast of pastries, orange juice etc while opening presents.
11:30am - Brunch. Generally something like sausage sandwiches, along with Christmas snacky bits, chocolates etc throughout the afternoon
5-6pm - dinner (starter and main)
8pm - Dessert

Presents in the morning? This is madness!

We have a late breakfast, open some presents, relatives pop in and out, we then go for a walk with grandson, put him down for afternoon nap between 12-1pm, everything's prepped night before , we then cook, we set to eat 3.30-4pm, we stay around the table till 7ish playing games opening gifts we didnt earlier, then one clears table, another loads dishwasher, others go play with grandson and his new toys.
about 8.30 we put crackers, nibbles ect on table to just pick at if wanted.
TBH i couldnt eat a big dinner at 12-1pm, id just want to sleep.

We always have it around then. I aim for 2pm but it's never ready until about 4pm. No one minds. We have a big breakfast and the house is full of food.

We always have it around at 4 as we have a nice scrambled egg, salmon, bagel and Buck’s Fizz brekkie which fills us up so not hungry at lunchtime. But there’s no rule, eat when you want.

Christmas dinner at 12 o clock is soooo wrong

We eat Xmas dinner between 5-6pm. We have a large late breakfast around 10.30 so dinner early evening is perfect.

I'd just add that - it IS really unusual to have a big celebration lunch, rather than evening meal, in our house and probably for many people, so for us, that's the point. It's very special and unusual to sit down to a fancy meal at lunchtime (or about 2.pm for us).

It's always been called Christmas dinner because once (long ago) dinner was eaten in the early afternoon. And in the north, where I come from, dinner is still used for what southern wusses people in the Home Counties (where I live now) call lunch.

we have light lunch, go for a walk, eat Christmas meal around 18.00 -19.00.

We call that Country Hours Dinner in our house, rather than lunch. You might want some form of brunch if you are planning to eat then. Or a decent breakfast. We used to eat dinner at 9pm before church at midnight so often we weren't awake until noon anyway on Christmas Day.

Wouldn't timings depend on age of children etc as they have often been awake since the crack of dawn.
Ours often depended on what DH had chosen to do (usually visiting local sick and elderly all very good but not if you have young children) so ate the main meal late by which time the children were stuffed full of sweets, tired and grumpy.
Our children are now adults and prefer to spend Christmas day with their in-laws

It's not only a regional thing, it's also a class thing. And a lifestyle thing.

My parents were working class Londoners. We always had breakfast, dinner and tea. When we were tiny in the 70s, my dad came home from work for his dinner. It was the big meal of the day. We had school dinners served by dinner ladies. We had Christmas dinner after the Queen's speech (i.e. 3.15).

When my mum went out to work, and we were in secondary school, school dinners morphed from meat and two veg into hot dogs, pizza or baguettes. We ate our main meal in the evening. So we had breakfast, lunch and tea. I still think of tea as my evening meal, even if I have it, as I usually do, around 8pm.

Chritsmas dinner is still Christmas dinner, at any time between 2-ish and 6-ish.

We eat at 2. Cook in the morning. Champagne around 1. Then still plenty of day left to enjoy. Personally, I’d hate to eat so late but there’s no wrong or right about it. 🦃

Yes, 4pm definitely too late for children.

We start with up around 9am and hot chocolates, first presents around 10 am and small breakfast ,watching christmas shows and preparing the dinner, christmas dinner around 3pm, relaxing, heading round to see the grandparents for an hour or so around 5/6pm as they live 5 mins away. Back in time for christmas specials and quality streets.

My mum always used to aim for 2pm-it was never much before 3.30. I dish up usually at half one, but only because my real favourite Christmas meal is Christmas Day tea, (with turkey sandwiches and the ham) and if I eat lunch too late I'm not hungry enough by tea time to enjoy it

I think this year I'm going to do a 4pm ish meal.

I used to do 1pm, because the children woke us up excitedly at the crack of dawn, so breakfast was by 7ish - leaving plenty of time to cook lunch and get it on the table by 1. And we hosted elderly relatives who liked to keep to normal meal times.

This year, the "children" are Uni aged, sadly our parents have either passed away or are too unwell to leave home, and so it's just DH and I, two young adults and an adult family friend who is staying with us for the festive season. So we'll probably get the "children" up about 9ish to do their stockings, then brunch with bucks fizz about 10ish, walk the dog, perhaps nip into the local for one, and then back to shove the dinner in the oven. I haven't exactly worked out the timings for the meat, but I imagine dinner will end up being around 4ish.

After years of early starts quite timetabled, busy Christmas mornings trying to get everything done in time for the arrival of guests, I'm quite looking forward to a more relaxed "it's done when it's done" approach this year. (I also think that due to our losses, we need to make Christmas different this year, rather than just as it always was but with empty seats and loved ones missing).

@SwingTheMonkey us too- the other thing is I hate feeling stuffed and sloth like all afternoon- whereas I don't mind slobbing with a drink when it's dark after 7pm