Shit Christmas Things.

[ForMintUser]

Turkey - shit. There’s a reason we only eat it once a year because it’s terrible.

Party food - beige shit.

Venting because I’m not allowed to voice these opinions around DP’s relatives so have to lie every year and pretend like it’s all lovely. It’s not.

Anyone agree? Disagree? Have anything else they hate about Christmas they want to vent about?

Pigs in blankets. The bacon is always soggy and the sausages don’t get browned because they’re wrapped in the soggy bacon.

Nativity plays. Not that they aren't lovely, but I wonder about the wisdom of penning several classfuls of small children, their parents and grandparents in a stuffy unventilated hall for an hour slap bang in the middle of bug season.

I don't dislike turkey but it's tougher, dryer chicken. There's a reason it's not eaten year round.

Similarly, most Christmas deserts are fine, but worse than you have the rest of the year.

Tradition basically means ignoring that food has generally improved.

Also agree with whoever said Quality Street and Roses - both are awful.

Has anyone ever cooked a goose?
One year I was with a date and we stopped by his sister’s house and she mentioned she had a goose in the oven.
This was bizarre because this was a small town deep in agricultural California where everybody just had turkey for Christmas, no big deal.
I thought I was in a Charles Dickens novel.
Where the hell did she even get a goose?
I should’ve asked her but I didn’t want to come off like a country bumpkin like I am now.

Quality Street used to be in massive tins but more importantly was Mcintosh's then Nestle bought it and ruined it like everything else they get their filthy claws into. They are a company everyone should boycott!

Being really ill over Christmas and Christmas last year is shit.

I'm making sure I have absolutely anything and everything to do with Christmas sorted by the 14th of December next year in hopes that resting before Christmas will stop me getting ill next year.

Turkey I love,I think we must be very lucky because we've never had a dry one yet and party food I know what you mean,I think I'm going too make more of my own party food next year rather than buying most of it in.

All the crackers haters, try making them. We did it this year and put nice chocolate inside. Kids helped me and we put extra in one lucky cracker so they were excited to see who got that on Christmas day. All the materials were recyclable

The overflowing of bins. Fighting with bins. Trying to piece together a bin like cardboard jigsaw puzzle by crushing one million cardboard items to their smallest size to fit in the recycling bin

I do still like Christmas, but the last few, including this year, have been a bit pants - partly circumstantial, partly due to other people being inconsiderate or even just a little unhinged.

I don't hate the stuff, but I don't see it as a luxury or a special gift. It's just a bog standard, everyday brand with pretensions. All fur coat and no knickers, so to speak. The marketing and branding and especially the boxed up gift sets at Christmas have been deliberately done to make you think you are getting a product akin to Jo Malone, Rituals or Molten Brown for the price of a bottle of Palmolive or Carex. But it isn't Jo Malone or Molton Brown or Rituals. It's just Palmolive or Carex. There is absolutley nothing wrong with it, and if you want to buy it for yourself as part of your usual supermarket shop, go ahead.

But if you wouldn't give someone Head and Shoulders, Dove or Sensodyne for Christmas then why would you give them Bayliss and Harding?

Turkey is lovely if it's cooked properly. We don't have any beige party food at Christmas, fortunately!

Cheap chocolates are shit. Roses, Quality Street etc. If things are shit, don't do them! I always love Christmas because we don't do/eat things we think are shit!

I hate toiletries of.any kind as ‘gifts’ But BH is an extra level of thoughtless/that will do gift giving. And the quality is crap.

Totally disagree - I love turkey - it’s gorgeous!!

I've worked in commercial kitchens so this is a bit of a bug-bear and offer my apologies in advance.

The question over the turkey is largely down to (i) have you bought the right bird? (ii) was it cooked correctly? (cook unstuffed, a 15lb bird is cooked at 160c for 2 hours on its breast and 30 mins on its back, then rested uncovered for 1 hour).

A free range turkey raised on good quality feed (grass and cereal not fish meal) that has been dry plucked, hung for 3 weeks in a chiller before being drawn, cooked correctly (invariably not according to instructions which still overcooks) can be a fabulous bird. Supermarket turkeys are not (i) regardless of what they claim to be on the label. Fewer than 4% of birds cooked are both (i) and (ii). Ignorance abounds on this which is why turkey gets a bad reputation.

The question really even withstanding (i) and (ii), is such a bird good value when the cost goes a long way to buying a 4 bone fore-rib of beef (hung for a minimum of 28 days preferably 36). I remember a time when butchers who valued their reputation wouldn't cut beef until it had been 28 days aged but that's a whole other subject.

If you don’t like Turkey or party food, don’t have it - and don’t visit people who serve it, unless you’re going to bring a dish of something you like along with you so you don’t have to have it! If anyone asks why, just say it doesn’t agree with you and leave it at that!

Elf on the shelf
Christmas Eve boxes
Baylis and Harding

I would have said crackers but this year someone recommended crackers with a pair of bamboo socks in every cracker - one size. Also had the hat and joke. Massive success for my 92 year old father, 28 year old DC & me & DH. Cost £13.98 for 6 with postage. Really good quality.

Admittedly our turkey was eyewateringly expensive but it’s absolutely delicious.
Rubbish things:-
Elf on the Shelf
Christmas starting way too early ( I work in retail & we have our Christmas stuff in from late August/early September)
Pressure from ads, magazines etc to be having an amazing time, decorate your home like an illustration from Homes & Gardens, generally be in a mad social whirl etc etc
Tv ads starting way too early
Another vote for cracker prizes!
Pressure to drink alcohol
Quality Street are awful! Loved them as a kid & we always used to hang them on the tree.

Absolutely. I work in a junior school and every Christmas we do a massive, whole-school production over 4 nights. The stress is unreal and all staff are expected to work 2 of the nights. We begin to rehearse straight after the October half term. During the run, we're all crammed into classrooms or corridors waiting for the children to be called to perform their dance/song and every year staff and children drop like flies with horrible viruses. On top of that, everybody is sniping at everybody else. The fallings out are epic!

In a well being survey recently, almost everybody stated that shifting the production to the summer term would be the number 1 thing that would improve well being. But, no...we still persist with the germ-laden stess-fest right before Christmas.

Humbug.

The in-my-day style Quality Street and Roses were a thing of beauty.
You got a big, useful, bright tin instead of a plastic tub...and all the sweeties were in lovely shiny cellophane that you used to hold up to your eye and declare, "Everything's gone purple!"
The sweet, rich smell of chocolate and flavoured fondant when you took the lid off on Christmas Eve in the evening, "You can have ONE but the rest are for tomorrow."

They are a shadow of how they used to be now...like so many other products.

(i) Use dry aged streaky bacon not brine cured, this will go a long way to removing the moisture problem.
(ii) Cook them on a rack or crinkled foil, don't leave them lying in fat.
(iii) Don't over crowd them, give them space to cook.
(iv) Roast them in a 'dry oven', not an oven that's full of other items emitting moisture. If you only have one oven, no problem, cook them slightly in advance and then warm them before serving while the meat is resting.
(iv) Turn them part way through cooking so they brown on both sides.

Or just don't have them? I remember when it was just a pig on your plate. No blanket required. I can't remember at what point the blanket became obligatory but personally I find them overrated.

I bought the most bog standard fresh supermarket turkey (not expensive at all) and wet brined it for 24 hours. It was absolutely delicious and not at all dry. I've been doing this for years and it's perfect every time.

Lazing around watching tv and eating chocolate. I'm not really a TV fan anyway but I go along with it at Christmas because thats what Christmas seems to be about! I feel like a slug lazing around, my backside is numb and Christmas specials are a bit... blah. Just the normal show with a sparkly theme. I wasn't made to watch TV all day, but I tolerate it Christmas and Boxing Day because it's the only time I get to spend with wider family. I'm making a start today on the huge pile of books I was given for Christmas. Bliss.

Couple of people have mentioned people being miserable about Christmas - I love Christmas! And was saying to DP earlier we’re very lucky we both have families we enjoy spending time with, not everyone is in that position.

To the people saying they love turkey - I’m chuffed for you, fill your boots. Not changing my opinion that it’s shit tho. I’ve had it cooked by others, done my own, had it in restaurants. Nope.

Had no idea people gave Baylis and Harding so much headspace but there you go!

Thank you!!!!!!