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 don't need to be inebriated to have a good time, yes she seems nice but if her idea of having a good time is being off your head and your brother's is going for run on Christmas morning, I don't think they will be together next year.
As far as your kids bringing boy/ girl friends in the future I think you say we will be offering Wine/ Beer if they want something else please bring it with them. Most youngsters these days seem to be happy with that. Also you mentioned your niece wasn't happy in the hedonistic atmosphere in the Easter party, that shows how drunk everyone was. Not an atmosphere I would want to encourage tbh.

Your Christmas Day sounds lovely. You worked really hard and were a great host.
it occurs to me that she possibly meant that the family attending were not the pissheads she is used to with everyone turning down the booze in favour of a cuppa. If so, she wasn’t commenting on the day you worked so hard for at all, just comparing the experience to what she’s used to.
I’m sure she enjoyed it and you shouldn’t worry or overthink it.

It all sounds lovely - as you say, she could have brought her preferred drink. Sounds as though she could have had more wine/fizz during the day if she had wanted.

So it wasn't about being abstemious, just that she is fussy about her drinks. And that is her fault.

Your Christmas sounds great. Not boring at all. We do all like a fair bit of alcohol as MIL stays and no-one drives - but that isn't relevant to whether our day is 'boring' or fun? What a weird comment. And even stranger that she said something - and that it was repeated back to you. Don't give it another thought....

I think your day sounds lovely except I wouldn't wait until 12 to offer alcohol. I would also tell everyone what's available (snacks and alcohol/drinks) so they can pick what they want when they want, rather than just offer specific things at specific times, which would feel to me a bit "controlled". People like different things (especially on Xmas day) and it sounds like she isn't keen on what you had on offer, so that with the "controlled" offerings, might be why she might have found it "abstemious".

I get loads of choices in, a variety of snacks that all go out on a table so people can grab what they want when they want. I also have in fizz, loads of different wines, Buck's Fizz, and loads of spirits and mixers including rum, vodka, baileys, amaretto, gin, advocaat. other alcoholic cream based drinks etc etc etc. spirits last for ages so I just have all these in all the time and replace what's run out each Christmas. Visitors can then have what they want when they want.

Sounds bloody great, lots of food and drinks etc, probably very expensive too and a lot of work. How very rude of her . If you get to hear any more comments I’d suggest she brings her own or doesn’t bother coming

Clearly she is used to a lot of hard drinking I'd rather have your Christmas

I’m wondering what your brother was thinking by telling you what she said!

Your Christmas sounds absolutely lovely to me. But I come from a family that played some games and also watched a film or something on Xmas day. My husband comes from a family that have obligatory loud games and copious amounts of alcohol all day. I find it far too loud and OTT, they find ours boring! As previous posters said, we’re all different and you can’t expect everyone else to celebrate the same way.

ps, I’d never heard of that word but I love it.

Ungrateful. Ungracious.

You went above and beyond to give your guests a great day. If she's alcohol-dependent, she needs to bring her own.

Sounds like a great Christmas Day to me. More lively than mine - after lunch, DH and I spent hours playing Triominoes with octogenarian aunt and uncle 😂😂

Your day sounds pleasant OP. But to go against the grain, I think your alcohol servings sound a little mean.

Let’s assume only those 18+ were drinking (although, from snowballs for the teenagers, it sounds like most people present were drinking). That conservative estimate gives us 7 adults of legal drinking age. All glasses below are calculated as 125ml, the smallest standard wine serving.

2 bottles of fizz between 7 adults at midday = 1.7 glasses pp

1.5 bottles of fizz at 1pm between 7 adults = 1.2 glasses pp

There is then a 2 hour gap until Christmas dinner at 3pm, with 2 bottles of red wine between 7 adults = 1.7 glasses pp

After dinner you played games and finished off the red wine and champagne. If I estimate this as another two bottles, we’re looking at another 1.7 glasses pp

Let’s say everyone has a Christmas snowball.

Then around 9pm everyone opts for tea / coffee, meaning your DB’s girlfriend likely felt obliged to do the same.

Between 12pm - 9pm, each adult had 6.3 glasses, at 125ml, a total of 787ml. So in effect one bottle of wine per adult, plus a snowball cocktail.

It’s fine if you’re keeping an eye on alcohol spends, but I certainly wouldn’t call that generous over a 9-10 hour Christmas Day celebration, in all honesty.

Your brother’s girlfriend is entitled to her opinion. He sounds like a bit of a stirrer for sharing her opinion with you.

Ungrateful. Ungracious.
You went above and beyond to give your guests a great day. If she's alcohol-dependent, she needs to bring her own.
But she wasn't. She rang up and said she had a lovely time.
She just used an adjective to describe how it was for her.
"nice but more abstemious than she's used to" is a pretty neutral statement. She is describing her expierence.

I spent time with my son's in laws. There was a lot of alcohol and drinks. It was more lively than I'm used to. But I had a nice time.

If anything, that was quite a lot of booze on offer. I’m not a big drinker so would have been sloshed by lunch .But sounded really nice, rounded day.

You can’t please everyone.

A bottle each spread over the entire day isn’t “a lot of booze” by any normal standards. I drank more than that on Christmas Day and went to bed fairly sober.

you sound like a very hospitable person and clearly put thought into your age groups and brought them all together which isn’t easy. I’d imagine that she’s learnt a new word and was just dying to use it. She sounds a bit of stirrer and maybe a tad jealous of your family’s closeness. I have ADHD so I’m just typing how this has made me feel. HNY 🎉🎊

It sounds lovely and massive effort to me.

Admittedly, i am not a good host nor guest as I don't drink nor take pleasure in food.

Interesting word that i shall start to use to describe myself.

Not abstemious at all. She sounds rude to me, and too tight to bring her own.

what a depressing way of thinking about things
the english language is one of the most descriptive in the world, with vocabulary developed over hundreds of years, infused with history and culture
why should we lower ourselves to the lowest common denominator?
fuck shakespeare, keats, milton, let's all talk and write like columnists for the Sun.
what's the ultimate aim, to end up grunting words of no more than one syllable because god forbid someone has to exert themselves by learning something new?
it's so indicative of the 'tall poppy' syndrome in this country that someone using a completely ordinary word is called pretentious.

who was she even being 'pretentious' towards? she's an english teacher, her whole job centres around language, she probably just used it naturally and doesn't consider it a particularly complicated word (because it isn't!).

there's a time and a place for straightforward, concise language, but to suggest someone speaking to their own partner in a private conversation in her own home, should censor herself from using the language that comes naturally to her, because, what, someone walking past might overhear it through an open window and be intimidated? is ridiculous. Or stupid, if you prefer.

incidentally, for a clip apparently outlining the importance of clear language, that guy didn't half meander around his point! and Jonathan Ross is a twat anyway, but if you're a interviewer then making your guest feel uncomfortable and laughing at them, again for using a completely appropriate word, isn't exactly a win. This is the guy who thinks peak comedy is prank calling an octogenarian to boast about shagging his granddaughter and discussing her menstrual cycle, so, again, not someone I'd want to take lessons in vocabulary from.

There’s a huge amount of inverted snobbery on this thread.

This is laughable when the whole thread is seeping with snobbery

The guest in question has been called alcohol dependent, entitled, tight, she has no class and her family are described as horrors because they like to drink vodka. I am sure there are many more but they all follow a similar theme

When in reality all that’s happened is she has made a comment to her boyfriend that the day was different to what she is used to (which I am sure 99% of us say when we first experience Christmas away from our own family), the boyfriend/OP’s brother has fuelled the fire by passing that comment, likely out of context on. The guest even phoned the OP to thank her for her hospitality.

But yes there is inverted snobbery because some people have not heard of a word

No wonder threads like this get ripped apart on other forums. It is MN at its finest

It sounds like little more than a typical Sunday dinner.

Tea or coffee at 11am on Christmas Day when guests have made the effort to be out and show up?? Not even a Coke or orange juice? And then some weird low-alcohol fizz instead of proper champagne?

Doesn't sound very festive; it sounds like something out of an old folks home.

This is laughable when the whole thread is seeping with snobbery

It’s not laughable because it referred to quite a specific issue - the use of a perfectly ordinary word.

I wonder why your brother is his 40s and yet there seems to be zero expectations of him to host but so much criticism of OP who actually made the effort to host.

I hadn't noticed any snobbery. I have noticed some people think Christmas equals a lot of alcohol :-). The op did serve alcohol, quite a reasonable amount too, and hosted very well. Certainly not abstemious and nothing snobbish about any of it.

It sounds like a very lavish spread to me and plenty to drink. You must have been exhausted getting all that together. The g/f sounds very rude and immature.

Before I read her reasoning I thought ‘ wow that’s a lot of booze’ but apparently not….