Was my Christmas Day "abstemious"?

[romanfriendsandcountrywomen]

I'm a little bit nonplussed because my brother's new girlfriend apparently found Christmas Day at our house "nice but more abstemious than she's used to". However, I'm also now wondering if I was perhaps a bit boring....

Present on Xmas day : DH, me, DD (19), DS (15), my parents (late 70s), DB (43), DB newish girlfriend (30 something) my niece (DB's daughter, 16.)

People arrived at 11am. It's morning so I offered teas and proper coffees etc while we opened presents. At 12.00 I opened 2 bottles of M&S sloe gin fizz (admittedly only 4% alcohol but lovely and nicer than Buck's Fizz imo) and everyone had a glass while finishing opening the presents.

About 1.00 I we had champagne and nibbles- probably about 1.5 bottles of fizz and lots of nibbly things )

Full Xmas dinner at 3.00. (Turkey, pigs in blankets, 2 stuffings, roast potato, roast carrots and parsnips, sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower cheese, Yorkshires, Christmas pudding and chocolate log.) Opened 2 bottles of red wine.

After dinner we played games and finished off the red wine and champagne. I made the traditional Christmas snowball for the teenagers. Lots of adults had one as well despite laughing at them! (Advocat, lemonade, line juice, cocktail cherry perched artistically on top!)

About 9.00 we watched a film and had cheese. I offered to open more wine and we also offered port or baileys but people were full so most just had a cup of tea.

People went to bed or got an uber about midnight.

I thought it had been a lovely day so the abstemious comment had thrown me a bit. Girlfriend is from a bigger family with lots of siblings who all bring partners and apparently it's a more "adult" affair. She was surprised there were no spirits or cocktails as apparently she doesn't really drink wine and drinks vodka cranberry/ vodka coke. We don't drink spirits so it never occurred to me and I did wonder why she couldn't have brought her own but I haven't said anything.

So there were 7 adults and 2 teens and we had 4 bottles of wine/ fizz, a couple of bottles of low alcohol fizz and snowballs, port and baileys offered. Over 12 hours apparently this isn't a lot.

Be honest. Was my Xmas day a bit boring? I probably should have asked what she liked to drink...

You realise that's because different posters reply to different threads, and that people are more likely to respond to an OP they think is in the wrong, right? MN isn't a hive mind!

It's a perfectly ordinary word.

Your day sounds lovey and I'd be thrilled with that as a guest! I thought you were going to say you had one bottle of fizz between all of you and that was it or something (that I would class as abstemious!). It wouldn't occur to me to offer vodka with Christmas dinner tbh but would have plenty of the drink you described. I have younger family members who'd prefer a vodka and would bring this with them and offer to share (I would have standard mixers in like lemonade and juice).

Sorry, didn’t read tft but Christmas is meant to be lovely and cosy. If you want FUN fly to Vegas and go partying. I don’t understand what kind of fun is expected to be had at Christmas family gathering apart from laughing and joking.
Alcohol wise, I wouldn’t say your drinks offering was ‘old and boring’ at all, I don’t know anybody who drinks spirits as their drink of choice with Christmas lunch or any lunch. It’s wine, Prosecco, champagne, maybe a margarita or g&t.

Christmas is what you and your family want it to be. As your children grow, and new people enter the celebrations, your Christmas's will organically change and adapt.

Your Christmas sounds lovely to me. I suspect your brother just summarised her comments, I doubt she said that directly and its not necessarily said in a negative way, its just not like the boozy Christmas's she is used to. And if your brother has spent Christmas with her family previously, he will be fully aware of the difference and so if he felt it was appropriate, he should have made sure that as a couple they brought what they wanted to drink....and maybe he didn't as he preferred your version???

Are tequila and gin no longer classed as spirits?!

We sometimes say we’ve been abstemious at Christmas in a jokey way when we’ve eaten plenty but don’t feel overstuffed.

I’m surprised it’s a new word to so many but lots of things are written on MN which I’m not familiar with at all and it’s good to learn something new.

What’s really unpleasant is the snarky attitude. It’s not wanky or pretentious to have a reasonably wide vocabulary. Inverted snobbery is not a good look.

Sounds a good day to me.
I wonder what tone her comment (to her partner) actually had - was she complaining or just commenting?
Sounds like she is used to a party with lots of alcohol, which is not something I realised people do at (family) Christmas. I wonder whether she expected the same party at yours.

It’s a chicken that some people somehow manage to feed a family of four on for a week. Sorry, it’s a bit of a trope.

It sounds a tiny amount of alcohol to me for seven adults over a whole day, and I'm saying that as someone who doesn't drink at all. While we don't drink spirits, we would always keep a bottle of gin, whisky, vodka, and brandy for guests.

She wasn't necessarily wanting spirits with her main meal. She was there from morning until bedtime. On Christmas day having a G&T or vodka and coke at some time isn't unusual. We usually have whisky on an evening and are usually on beer on an evening but some weren't drinking some stuck to wine. If having cheese there's usually port

Why are you all pretending that abstemious is a normal word that we us in everyday lexicon? Sounds like you had a Holly jolly ai generated Noel that was positively sybaritic.

It's a word that we both use regularly - it's not exactly an unusual word!

The OP hardly overdosed everyone - 1.5 bottles of bubbly for 9 people, so your comparison does not really apply here. I have been to so many miserable 'hostings', not just with alcohol, but with food, that dh and friends and I had to go for a chippy afterwards and we are not big eaters.

Abstemious is a word I use often. It’s hardly unusual.

This trend of accusing anyone who uses a word that isn't in the top 500 most-commonly-used words of being "AI" is really tedious. Is it really incomprehensible that anyone should have a reasonably wide vocabulary in 2024?

Yes, I agree. That is the core of it, not his girlfriend's opinion. It just wasn't what she was used to or expecting. Other than that it sounds like a lovely day.

Bet you don’t.

Because it is.

Yes I must admit it's a normal word for me as well. My family who are unposh use it regularly.

If DD was bringing a new squeeze home for Christmas I would make sure I had the foods and drinks in that they enjoyed. If it was something we don't drink I might get a smaller bottle.

I've never heard of the word I had to look it up, just sounds pretentious to my ear though. I can't imagine using it frequently, you'd have to be some kind of martyr surely?

Would you like a drink? Oh no I'm being terribly abstemious this year.

Would you like some dessert? Oh no I'm abstemious at the moment.

Can you use it in other ways?

Would you like a chocolate? Oh no I'm abstemiating from them.

Do you like sex? Oh no I'm abstemiate.

I reckon the same sort of people who use this word frequently are the same people who have an 'enormous salad' and a 'MN chicken'.

There’s no such word as abstemiate. It’s abstain.

I'm about the same age as the girlfriend and I think OP's Christmas sounds wonderful! Personally I don't associate cocktails with Christmas. I'd just expect bubbles, wine and beer. There's enough food logistics to worry about before adding mixers to the mix! I think it's probs more of a different families do it differently thing rather than an age thing.

It’s a brilliant word, I love it. Abstemious (Scottish here where we love being abstemious) 😁