To stop tight inlaws cooking sad Xmas dinner

[Kiwilime]

Inlaws are early 70s, they're pretty wealthy but so TIGHT. At Christmas their priority is booze. The last time we went to theirs for Christmas we stayed for a few days. MIL was banging on for weeks about all the prep she was doing and how she couldn't wait. Told us explicitly not to bring a thing (we did still bring a few bits including a tub of chocolates we never saw again). But they had barely any food in the house. Bottles and bottles of wine and sherry. But nothing to actually eat, and no Christmas treats, except for a bowl of about 4 humbugs (ironically) in the hallway. We basically ate bran flakes and cheese on toast for four days. Xmas Dinner was sparse (no vegetables because MIL doesn't like them) and all value freezer stuff. It was a bit sad tbh. If that's all you can afford then of course that's fine, but if you're rich and having guests over, I don't understand why you'd serve people that? I'm from a much poorer background and if we had guests we'd at least offer them chocolates/biscuits, and make an effort over Christmas dinner. They're also anal about heating and have a very strict schedule and only heat certain rooms - basically being both hungry and freezing cold is not my idea of a nice Christmas.

So I've offered to bring the turkey/meat and even offered to cook dinner this year, and do some veg, but MIL insists on cooking her usual stuff because that's what they've done for 40 odd years. I've offered to do a nice cheeseboard or a dessert, but even that's been declined.

I've had a shit year and don't want an unecessary Dickensian Christmas. AIBU to bring meat, veg etc for Xmas day and just start cooking?

Stay home. You don’t need to give a reason but if you feel you do just say you’d like to spend it and home and cook yourself. Doesn’t matter what they’ve done for past 40years. It’s incredibly rude to cook a dinner and not do vegetables (which is part of a Christmas dinner) just because the cook doesn’t like them, what about the guests?

Re the veg, prep and bring - you need to eat loads of brussels as you've been diagnosed with iron shortage etc

Who cooks a roast dinner with no veg though? Seems especially odd for someone of that age.
was it just meat on a plate? 🤣
Yes you can’t really take over their kitchen. I’d either book to go to a local pub or just turn up with a load of food I wanted to eat that just needs reheating and all the snacks I like I wouldn’t ask. I wouldn’t really care what they thought either - they clearly don’t about you!

My parents are like this. I know it would be miserable, nothing more than a Sunday dinner, too much effort, too much expense.

We plan well ahead so that the ‘let down’ close to Christmas is avoided. I would love to not have to host Christmas but prefer it to being at their house.

As your in-laws get older, their hosting is going to lessen anyway. Time to make different plans.

I suggested we go out for Christmas Day - my parents suggested a local pub, think Wetherspoons/ Hungry Horse type place….I am hosting! 😂

Plan ahead. As a teacher, we work on choices with children who require support. ‘Either-Or’ - two choices.
”IL’s, next year shall we book Christmas at (chosen upmarket hotel😆) or do you want to come to us?”. It gives them a choice ….and if they don’t want either then they are ‘home alone’.

Oh I’ve just found your update. If he wants to go that’s much trickier as it’s reasonable he gets a say after a handful of years not going. I’d definitely take indulgent treats in my luggage for an occasional time out in my room moment and so you aren’t actually hungry, but is the Christmas meal itself meal really worth the tension of taking over their kitchen? I’d tell DH you want a substitute indulgent NYE meal just the way you like it when you return home. If you desperately want the veg, take them prepped and announce loudly that you get horrifically bunged up without enough plant fibre. I expect they would find that awkward to argue with ( though they might thrust the box of bran flakes at you😃).

You genuinely can't understand it? You really haven't got the imagination to think that many people were punished or ridiculed or bullied for being 'quietly assertive'. Which meant they were trained not to speak up.

Of course it's possible to overcome that kind of conditioning. Some people do it without help but for many people they need therapy and practice to change. Many people are not even aware they're people pleasers because it's so ingrained in them to put other people first or not speak up about their own needs/wants.

I'm suspecting that DH is definitely in that camp. Anyone who is so controlling of their environment when they have adult guests as to not offer vegetables on Christmas Day because they don't like them is not going to have any qualms about controlling or shaming a child/adolescent.

I agree with taking your own food and some thermals. Do you have to stay for so long? Have a lovely Christmas eve, turn up early evening, leave boxing day morning? Say last time you felt you drank too much and thought it was best if you had extra snacks/ cheese/vegetables to soak up the booze. If MIL is offended, maybe she should make more food! I have a joint bank account with my mum to pay her bills because she doesn't want to do online banking. She said 'Buy presents for the children but be careful because I just went to Lidl so check it doesn't go overdrawn'. I checked and she had over £20k in it! I don't know what she was expecting me to buy for the kids or how much she had spent in Lidl but it seems some older people ( shes in her 70's and old before her time) just become very overcautious about money.

I don’t think it’s that people can’t ; it’s more that some people genuinely don’t think it’s worth the tension. I guess in this case it comes down to how important the food really is to OP.

@Kiwilime Why on earth has your husband not told his parents that this is unacceptable?

OMG that really is one of the worst Christmas things I've read on here!

Did they make an excuse as to why? Did they speak to you the rest of the time? Presumably SiL was the golden child and DH the scapegoat? How absolutely dreadful.

Clearly you haven't got the imagination then.

I wouldn't go. Stay at home and have a lovely Christmas, go and visit the Scrooge's on boxing day

Just don't go? And I'd tell them why.

Life is too short to spend Christmas - or any time of year - sacrificing your own wants and needs to appease others OP.

Sounds utterly miserable. If you have to go, take your own food.
It's your Xmas too.

@EsmereldaTheThird Pleeeeease tell me what your aunt said in reply!

Sounds awful! If you do go I’d pack as much food and as many treats as possible. Extra veg for Xmas dinner, chocolates, crisps, cheese and crackers etc. Don’t hand them over to never be seen - just get things out as and when you want them and offer them round. Nice extras for breakfast. Also some comfy warm clothes/slippers and hot water bottles so you can feel cozy.

20 years? Bloody hell that's a gigantic overreaction and incredibly unfair on your DH. Wow

I'd be thinking about doing 2 Christmases - do your own big banquet just as you like on Christmas Eve because then if you gorge out then, a frugal affair on Xmas day could be quite welcome - and you can helpfully bring some 'left overs' that just need using up, I bet they love avoiding waste so will find it hard to reject if you turn up with them!

xx

ps you could literally be talking about my grandparents. They're in their 90s and insist on hosting (I love them to bits, it's a mammoth ordeal for them obviously) but Vienetta is still an extravagance for them so it's bloody awful!!

I was really picking up your argument and bringing it with me to the next juncture. namely, even if they did progress through therapy etc to the point they were able to speak up, some people nevertheless don’t see the point of it at every opportunity. Yes for the big issues but we don’t all need to practice on every trifle to feel confident of asserting ourselves when the big moments come. Personally I I would draw the line at going hungry, but OP can solve that with a tuck box. And I’d take a hottie and jumper.

I’d take a trip to M&S and fill up a cooler box full of treats. Keep it in your room if they get weird about it and enjoy.

Cooler box a great idea. But why even advertise its existence if they aren’t into food. Cheese keeps well in a cooler.

That sounds utterly miserable. I agree with previous posters: don't go. Tell them you're doing your own Christmas this year and they're welcome to join you.

It also provides a useful line of defence against mice and rats… which large unheated houses have been known to boast from time to time.

Get an air b&b and just go to their strange dinner eat with your coat and hat and gloves then go and make some normal Xmas dinner at the rental.

I would take slippers, blankets and scarfs, and all the extra food you like for breakfast etc including prepared vegetables for Christmas dinner. Then just bring it all out. Keep your cooler box in your car boot as it's freezing out and it will stay cold. Just keep saying I love all the Christmas extras and I'm happy to bring them with me. Good luck !