To ask about weird Christmas dinners?

[EightChalk]

And weird Christmases in general! My in-laws are totally normal, welcoming, the house is warm, and the festive food is entirely as expected, with no weird rules around present-opening or enforced games (and of course I think my own family customs are normal!). Grateful as I am for this, I love reading the threads about weird rules you've encountered at other people's houses, and was hoping that there would also be some tales from bizarre Christmases past!

Not weird but my own family had our own Xmas day routine when I was growing up.
Presents, bacon butties, men went off to the pub, women stayed and had a drink/chocolates as they got everything ready (this was the 80s), huge Xmas dinner, slob on the sofa for every soap going, more drinks, buffet tea/leftovers, more drinks, then the Xmas comedies.
My first Xmas at inlaws was sooo different! No TV, no help yourself to the chocolates before dinner, a little Xmas dinner with a couple of small drinks, board games, little supper and more board games.

I remember secretly ringing my own mum and nearly crying that Xmas didn't feel right! 🤣 I was in my 20s! 🤣

It was at my MIL that I discovered some people cook their turkey all night long . I just start cooking when I get up around 7 or 8 in the morning . My kids think smelling the roasting turkey with the bacon atop the turkey is the smell of Christmas .

In-laws have stopped cooking a Christmas dinner, I have no issue with this however it does mean the Boxing Day buffet is shit.

Crikey that's harsh!!! Usually my DC are through all their chocolates by 8am and I open the champagne at 9am!

I've done my share of unconventional meals. We'll probably have a buffet this year actually, because we were supposed to move house but our seller is a divorced couple and at the 11th hour the man has started dicking around blocking the sale. Rant over, anyway, our dining table is piled with boxes and I don't want to carry them back upstairs.

I had never seen potatoes peeled and put in a bucket of water in the garage on Christmas Eve, until I had Christmas with my in laws.

Or the turkey cooked the day before and sliced to be heated in the microwave before serving on Christmas Day.

At least I get peas now, because I loathe sprouts, and yet would still like a green veg on my plate.

Has anyone ever been at a house on Christmas day when the oven is in all morning and they still insist on having the heating on ? 🥵

Santa's presents and stocking first thing. Then nothing else touched until we had breakfast. Then we took it in turns to open the 'under the tree' presents.

That's what we do, but Father Christmas only does stockings, so all other presents are under the tree. Everyone dressed and breakfasted before presents. I like it that way!

Oh and there's no going to the pub, and we never watch tv when we're with my side of the family on Christmas Day, but the dc sometimes do a bit if we're at PIL's.

@TheFeistyFeminist I peel my potatoes on xmas eve and leave them in a big pot in the garage . It frees up space . I also leave bottles of booze in the garden , oh and condiments are emptied out of the fridge into a plastic box and stored in the garage . It's cold in there , and the wine and beer cools nicely in the garden .

My MIL used to join us for present opening on Christmas morning (including time she seat in car outside from 5 am and woke us all at 5. 30 because she was getting cold...). She had a rule that present opening started with the youngest and the next person could only start opening once youngest's were all open mad in a tidy pile. It took bloody hours. We quickly put a stop to that!!!

Former MIL used to cooked the turkey for hours. Then slice it, take the skin off, leave on a plate 'warming' for hours then serve. If you designed a way to get the driest possible meat, she invented it. And her gravy was rank so not even that saved it. Add vegetables, boiled yellow. And her tree was artificial and pink and I'm a snob.

My cousins (of whom there are thousands) insist on everyone opening their present singly, while everyone watches, and appreciates it. Because we are a family of singles and no kids, and they breed like rabbits, we have to buy 10s of presents and they buy a few. We can't buy token tat from Poundland because... everyone is watching. I've stopped going. It was also always Boxing Day which meant suffering it with a mild hangover. <shudder>

I think wearing the clothes you got as presents for Christmas dinner sounds fun!
Once I was about 7, the rule about presents in our house was Father Christmas brought stockings which you could open as soon as you woke, one big present, say, after breakfast and the rest waited until after lunch. We all opened them taking one at a time each so that we could all admire everything.

My Ex In Laws didn't want to cook Xmas dinner, so planned to eat out. Fine . But not on Xmas Day as it was to expensive, even though they were loaded. So on Boxing Day. Xmas Day had nibbles ( their words) or tried to cadge an invite elsewhere. In over twenty years of marriage, I only spent one with them after I realised that this is the way it was going to be .

@VickyEadieofThigh that’s so funny as my exs mother also always got liebfraumlich as she knew I liked wine but I really struggled with that one

I always have sweetcorn with roast Turkey or roast chicken. Apart from cauliflower cheese and roast parsnips, it's the only vegetable I eat with my xmas lunch . 😆

Yes, my house - it's only the kitchen that gets hot and the rest of the house would be freezing!

We literally have no self control when we start in my family and my parents are the worst and they can hold their liquor the best. It was a rule that was introduced for a very good reason. Too many Christmas’s spent sloshed and too full on chocolates to enjoy the day. My husbands family didn’t drink so he finds it hilarious that we (my family) are all waiting with baited breath for noon to crack the champagne open but then we eat the fish course at 1 and dinner after. So the food counteracts the alcohol. We are not posh btw.

We once had a guest who tried to stop us pulling crackers with our Christmas dinner. Because apparently we'd all had plenty of gifts for one day and wouldn't it be nice to get a little gift on Boxing Day? Note: these were bog standard supermarket Christmas crackers, not some fancy offering from Harrods, the best prize would have been a joke, plastic nail through your finger ring! Fortunately my Dad put his foot down and the crackers were pulled. We managed to cope with the excitement of the gift just fine!

Your Christmas was mine too, years ago.
I wish I could turn the clock back!

Instead of stockings we hung up elf hats. On Christmas morning, after we emptied out our hats to see what we got we had to wear the hats all day. They had bells on the end so all day long we'd jingle jangle around the house.
I make my family do the same thing now.

We used to always have another family come round for Christmas Eve dinner and after dinner me and my brothers would put on a play for entertainment, either Papa Panov's Special Christmas and Star Boys (which was a singing one and I always had to be the Star "boy" and never got to be the soldier or King Herod or the King of the Moors which was such a disappointment each time).
I'd like to make my children do this tradition but I don't have enough children and no one to invite for dinner.

As a child we weren't allowed to open presents until my mum had had a shower, washed and dried her hair AND put her makeup on ... the absolute AGONY of that wait!! She was probably ready by 9.30 as we got up to open our stockings around 5!! I have to wake my kids up to open their stockings 😂 always have had to!! So even now it's agony for me!!

What! I like to eat my small box of Ferraro pre breakfast! Which I admit is probably unusual but don’t folk often have Buck’s Fizz for breakfast? Or is that another odd thing we do?!

Here too!

MIL doesn’t believe in boiled veg so does roasted veg with every meal including Xmas dinner - my first Xmas with them was a bit of a surprise and the only time I’ve had roast peppers and roasted red onion with Xmas dinner! They have another (super weird) xmas dinner addition but it’s so specific and odd I’d immediately out myself putting it here. Part of me really wants to though as I can’t believe anyone else does it 🤣