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?

This sounds exactly the same as my IL’s. They seem to not want to spend a penny on Christmas. Also an age thing where they are all sitting comfortably on big pensions, mortgages paid off and huge savings accounts. When it comes to spending money on food they spend £25 a week on food and not a penny more. They shop the basics range and hardly eat. Heating is never on. They barely wash (cost saving). This year we are going to theirs for Christmas but I am taking everything up with us, otherwise we would end up hungry. They just don’t think of Christmas or food in the same way we do. Just make sure you take food with you, it’s not rude if the host can’t be bothered to make Christmas special. Totally get that you need to see them, but make it comfortable for your family and leave as soon as you can.

Bring a supply of nuts, crisps, chocolates, turkish delight, mince pies, stollen, clementines and grapes etc and keep them in your bedroom

What an incredibly nasty thing to do. Take those things by all means but put them out to share. If I discovered one of my guests had been gorging themselves on secret goodies in their bedroom I’d be furious, anyone would.

You're wonderful OP. Just wonderful

What if they told you it was because you don't have enough food or heating at Christmas and you don't let people bring anything?

Your post did make me chuckle!

Cherries 😄 not satsumas, or just "some fruit" - cherries!
Shortbread, hedgehog(?) and ginger - not just "some biscuits" (in case OP's not sure what that could possibly be) 😂
A car fridge 🤣
Ask MIL to make the gravy - just a weird and random suggestion 🤔
A "jolly" walk - they could take hockey sticks! 😂🤣
Water pistols It's December and the house is cold! 🙄
Stash chocolate and crisps in kids' sleeping bags - We don't even know if they have kids, let alone kids with sleeping bags! Will OP be searched for contraband on arrival? 😂

I know you are trying to be upbeat and encouraging, but OP says it'll be a food and heat-free zone, not a totally fun-free one. Explaining Christmas crackers is kinda patronising!

And insisting things just sounds bossy.

I'm with pp suggesting veg sides in foil trays (no washing up), snacks and treats opened and offered to all, and other foodstuffs brought in a normal shopping bag and either put in fridge or in the bedroom.

I always take an "emergency sandwich" when staying anywhere overnight as I am paranoid about getting hungry when I can't do anything about it.

You shouldn't expect visitors to be cold. Its always good manners to ask ppl if they are warm enough and put heating on etc.

This sounds exactly the same as my IL’s. They seem to not want to spend a penny on Christmas. Also an age thing where they are all sitting comfortably on big pensions, mortgages paid off and huge savings accounts. When it comes to spending money on food they spend £25 a week on food and not a penny more. They shop the basics range and hardly eat. Heating is never on. They barely wash (cost saving)

Totally off topic but I have family manners like this and I can’t fathom what they plan on ever doing with all of their money?

We go and visit DH’s nan and the house is freezing, she’s dressed in multiple layers, and has health issues that are much improved by being warm but she will hardly have the heating on. DH sorted out propate when his grandad died and moved their savings into better high interest accounts for her, so we know she has over 200k in the bank. She’s 89. The mind boggles.

Go, but take some lovely prepared veggies. Take chocolates, and fripperies

I have asked my parents.

They bought a house within my mum’s arbitrary unrealistic budget, where they don't want to be, spend very little on anything, if they do buy anything, it is the cheapest rubbish, the car is ancient and causes stress, yet they have hundreds of thousands in the bank.

I gently challenged ( didn't get anywhere when I blurted out in frustration “you live like paupers”😱😳) with “ I am worried about you, you make me think you've lost loads of money somehow” and my mum said “ as children and young adults,we never had much, I never want to go back to that” .

Why jeer at cheery and constructive suggestions, @Isittimeformynapyet ??

Well, because the suggestions were daft. I did explain each point in my response.

I know it was a jeery post, and appreciate your response, but I felt it was a very presumptive list of silly, patronising suggestions and, to be completely honest, I felt like calling it out.

*presumptuous

Exactly this. Christmas is such a precious time and your husband should know this and support you in having a magical time for yourself.

If he wants to go alone he may do so, but it's too cold and miserable for you to have a good time, and you don't want to step on any one's toes by insisting the heating be on or being excited for full Christmas trimmings to be let down if it's not what MIL wants.

Don't go. Parents ought not to assume their kids will turn up on the day forever however miserable they make the day.
We've had precisely 2 Xmas dinners at home since we were married over 30 years ago, and one of those was down to covid, after that 1st year we were bubbled. In the early days, it was because we had no kids and other siblings were either further away or had kids and wanted xmas at home with them; we alternated between the sets of in-laws, xmas at one set, New Year with the other, next year the other way round. More lately its due to elderly parents- now only 1/4 left, and would rather it was at her house, and given she is 90 we go along with it, and it's always a good day.
We just treat New Year's Day as our xmas day.
We've had some good Christmasses over the years, with never any problems, but sometimes I do think it would have been nice to have more of them at our house. But life always is a compromise.
However, if it meant a miserable, cold, hungry Christmas, we'd definitely only have had the one away from home. Compromise works both ways.

It just doesn't seem the right thread to make your point about gobby people when the OP and her DH clearly are struggling to assert themselves. The OP doesn't sound like she is in a constant state of outrage in the slightest bit.

I didn't say I had assertiveness issues, although at times and with certainly people I can struggle, and I have very much experienced this in the past and have to some extent overcome it, which is why I made my original post. I don't need your sympathies, but thanks for offering them, empathy and support is entirely different.

We all have different boundaries as to what we consider reasonable to bear. Personally I think sitting in the cold on Christmas Day with not enough food is a reasonable one to set one, but if you'd be happy with this, maybe you should go to the OP's inlaws? Not causing friction may be the most important thing for you, for many people it causes a lot of distress.

Haha! Well because I can see it wasn't. As you've tried to imply that it might have been from you when it clearly wasn't then I'll remain sceptical that anyone has thanked you for disputing that some people don't assert themselves because they've been trained not to do so. Unless it was the original person that I disagreed with, obviously.

Uh. Well, some people provide better for their guests than others.
I always try to provide with a generous hand, an have alternatives, and ask people before they come what their likings or dislikings are. And I tell guests where the biscuits are, and the cake tin, and the bread, toaster, jam, cheese biscuits, cheese, fruit, ...etc, and to help themselves if they get the munchies at any time. And I mean it.
But
when staying at other people's houses, I always pack biscuits at the very least. Just in case.
I am a real enthusiastic omnivore, but some households serve food with peculiar flavours even I can only eat a 'polite' amount of, or have weird times for meals or get very behind with cooking when there are guests, and I have an odd digestion and sometimes need to fill a gap. And I don't bawl it abroad or plonk the stuff on the sideboard, because it's not necessary and I don't want to upset my host. It's not deception, it's no different to taking your medication in private.
And weddings- don't get me started. Waiting literally 4 hours for the photographers to do their thing first at the chruch, and then at the reception, before you can eat, older guests start passing out because they haven't eaten for ages, because the wedding was at lunchtime and nobody had eaten since breakfast. And me, I don't usually eat breakfast. 5pm is too late for my first meal of the day. In my handbag for any wedding is a little packet of biscuits and maybe a choc or two.

My in laws were like this OP. To be fair to them, they did put on a good Christmas dinner, with a nice joint of beef, but there were very few trimmings, a single bottle of red and a couple of beers for six adults. And then nothing else for any of the NUMBER of days we were expected to stay.

Nothing for breakfast, no snacks (those are for fat people who they hate), no other 'main' meals planned, booze had run dry (except for FILs secret stash of beers in the garage).

I remember FIL muttering that he had expected us to have left overs for a few days, but there was just enough for the main meal, let alone enough to sustain 6 adults for days on end as they had, bafflingly expected.

The first time I went to visit there was nothing to eat except a small amount of cheese on toast on Boxing Day (and there was barely enough of that) and then DH and I went out and spent a lot of money buying enough food for six adults when we were poor new cohabitees in our early 20s in our first job. And his parents expected NAICE food too. His brother contributed not a crumb. I'm going to admit I was livid, and it didn't do our relationship much good.

Future Christmases were handled by 'bringing the cheese board and a pudding'. And of course this included fruit, chocolate, bread, butter, nuts, crackers, chutneys, antipasti and additional booze. Sometimes even a ham. And booking somewhere for Boxing Day lunch (I never managed to get them to agree to book somewhere for Christmas Eve dinner... that is a whole other story). And not staying for that long.

But honestly, the resentment at the insistance that we spend Christmas with people who didn't really like it, and had the hosting abilities of a bed bug, alongside being generally nasty, difficult people set in.

I'm going to come clean and admit I am now v low contact with MIL for many, many other reasons, (FIL died a few years ago) and it is glorius to have dropped the rope over trying to make visits to them in general, but most of all Christmas, work. DH is unhappy about it though... Standing your ground does come with a price.

Then feed your guests ffs.

I can't believe you would be more angry that you guest didn't share food than the fact they where so hungry and you where so unreasonable that they had to sneak food... says a lot about you and its not good.

The reason everyone is saying that is because IL are taking the food then not sharing it.

You are right that OP does not seem overly assertive; but some responses have emphasised that a lack of it is lamentable which was what I was responding to and makes it precisely the right thread to raise it. I have clarified my support for some of your views yet you seem intent on lobbing insults such as lacking empathy and imagination. Something has clearly wiggled up your bottom and won’t dislodge so let’s just leave it. I was concerned not to have left you feeling I was dissing your view ( call that lack of support or jack of empathy if you will) but I’m not interested in a to and fro in which you are just determined to niggle and fault find, however convoluted. My position remains the same that I don’t think OP should go hungry ( hence indulgent tuck box in the car/room suggestion, which I don’t think she is under any obligation to share if they have expressly indicated they are not open to contributions) nor do I think she should suffer being cold ( hence hottie and extra jumper suggestion). My advice - which may not be yours, but then it isn’t required to be - is that her DH would probably appreciate it if she went along with the visit in other respects. I’d also be seeing if they couldn’t make it a little shorter than it sounds as though it was last year.

@blossomtoes
What an incredibly nasty thing to do. Take those things by all means but put them out to share. If I discovered one of my guests had been gorging themselves on secret goodies in their bedroom I’d be furious, anyone would.
Feed your guests and they won't need to feed themselves!!!
Why do pps here continue to visit ppl who starve them and refuse heating?

Stay at home and cook your dinner your way. No way would I go if I did not want too.

OR say "I'm cold and the children are very cold and miserable, MIL - please put the heating on or we're going to have to go home."

I'd be turning up with all the food I wanted to have and I'd insist on putting it in the fridge, pantry or whatever myself. If it didn't appear, I'd say "Where's the (insert food name) we brought? I'll just get it out."

But this wouldn't have happened to me more than once. My DP would have been told to sort it, or we wouldn't go again.

What a thread! Op I also suspect your IL are alcoholics. rarely eat don’t care about food and don’t know how to manage it. I stopped traveling on Cmas when my children were toddlers using “want to stay home with their presents” as an ironclad reason. The unspoken is my uncle brought his sister with a BROKEN ankle for 14 hrs to my house…straight to hospital by us, he clogged the toilet and left it for me to find..forgot food and brought half eaten food. The one year we went to his house it was cold and I got lost going home by myself with 2 DC. As a result I host every holiday. I wore a silk blouse last year to cook I want to dress up not flog around in oodle so my house is warm. People who cannot or will not host properly DO NOT DESERVE to have your company on the highest holiday of the year. Give them the a visit before or after. Invite them but don’t go there it will be as bad or worse. Christmas is for children prioritize them. Do not compromise your integrity by lying or sneaking or being false jolly while wearing coats and space heaters about this shitty holiday. It’s a charade holiday refuse to play along. It takes one time to say…no that doesn’t work for us and you have shifted the paradigm and can enjoy the holiday. DH will follow your lead

Suggest going out to a restaurant on Christmas Day - to save them the work. If money isn't an issue, that might be an option.