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 eat brunch around 11 and dinner around 6.30.

We have guests for both (different people) and if it weren’t for that, we’d have Chinese takeaway whenever I felt like it!

I pressed the wrong button. I think 4pm is fine - I like being able to get out in the fresh air for a bit before eating!

We do 1:30/2ish. 4 would be an annoying time for me personally, I'd want it either later or earlier.

I think that's fine as long as any guests are aware so they can plan accordingly. If you've invited people to come at 1 (for example) and they're expecting to be fed around that time they'll be starving by 4

Frisbee them the quality street and keep the drinks flowing. 😂

By 4pm I would have snacked too much to tide me over.

YANBU. We have champagne, smoked salmon and sausage rolls at 10. So 4pm is perfect for a late lunch.

Then ham, cheeses and salad for supper around 8/9pm, which everyone says they won’t manage but do anyway 🤷‍♀️

What do you eat at 12/1pm to keep you going?

We'll eat ours at around 1pm. Then later, for dinner we'll have crackers, cheese etc and more pudding.

We have young kids though so they need normal meal times.

We always eat Christmas dinner (not lunch) about 4pm. I guess it depends on family traditions

That's what time we have it but I don't call it "lunch". We have french roast and bacon or bagels and smoked salmon or something in late morning, and eat between 4 and 5.

Love Christmas Day supper which is cold turkey, stuffing & bread sauce sandwiches & maybe some cheeses.

You are absolutely not being unreasonable as this used to drive me crazy when my kids were small.
You can't expect small children to wait until then, so you have to give them something for lunch. But as 4pm is way earlier than normal dinner time, they are not really ready to eat then.
To make things worse, my parents insisted on endless plates of 'nibbles' beforehand so the kids filled up on crisps nuts and breadcrumbed bits so they were not interested at all when the main meal was served.
I spent years begging my parents to change to either 2pm ('far too early!') or 6pm, to no avail. My sister then took over when she had kids but they would not budge.
In the words of my mother. 'Who wants to eat lunch at 1pm?' Most people mum 🙄

We tend to eat around 2-2:30pm. It’s basically Sunday lunch time, after a late breakfast, then only leftovers and cheese/crackers/chocolates for dinner. We always have a full house for a few days though and if we waited to eat til later, I’d have to think of something else for lunch, which is a pain. And leaves time for a walk after before it gets dark. If we only had people popping in for a meal and not planting themselves there to be fed for several days, we might do it later, but I’m a creature of habit and that’s just what we’ve always done since we started doing the hosting.

We are not tied to set times, but it’s usually about 4pm. We don’t eat anything in the evening afterwards as we’re stuffed.

We’d normally eat around 3-4pm. Breakfast is 10ish, we do our starter around 1pm (smoked salmon blini) which keeps us going before the last push of cooking happens. If we had breakfast super early maybe I could do lunch at 12pm, but I prefer it later.

One memorable year we did Christmas lunch at one family’s house who eat early. We got back to the second family’s house where we were staying just as they started on the cheese, being a late Christmas dinner family. Our timing was perfection as we’d just hit the “I could eat again” spot.

We've had it around that time before due to lot of chiefly workers either being on nights Xmas Eve or mornings Xmas days.

The logistics of a nurse two policemen and 4 military plus kids and other adults for Xmas is an absolute headache

4pm is usual for us. We are a family that bloody loves a canapé so will have plenty of party food available with drinks from midday onwards, then lunch. Bread/cheese/cold meats + Christmas cake if people want food in the evening.

Working class 13:00 or maybe 13:30. Middle class 16:00 or later. Yes, I know I’m making sweeping generalisations, and I know there are no doubt many exceptions. I straddle the 2 so have to deal with not being able to keep everyone happy!

Ffs. SHIFT bir chiefly

Christmas dinner. No one cares what time it appears. Everyone’s already full of chocolate.

The right time to eat your Xmas lunch/dinner is the time that suits YOUR family

So any time is the Right time afaic

Yes, we have brunch of smoked salmon & eggs etc at 10/11. Then Christmas dinner around 4.

It’s my preferred time. Leaves plenty of time for cleanup and then a late night snack.

family compromises mean we normally eat at 6 or 7 instead.

We usually plan for 4pm but invariably it's more like 6pm by the time we've all managed to be ready.

I e never had a turkey that took more than 2-2.5hours cooking, as we normally feed between 4-8 max. So it goes in the oven at 10am and out around 12noon, then rests while veggies are dealt with and all served at 1ish.

we normally put the turkey in the oven and then go out with the dog.

We always have a big brunch around 11ish, which means we never eat our Xmas roast until 4/5pm which always seems perfect for us