Christmas dinner police

[Namechangesecretsignature]

Can’t sleep and endlessly reading MN. Oh how I loathe the Christmas dinner police. Policing what “should” be on a Christmas dinner, calling it Christmas lunch (urgh), all the formalities and “musts”. Reminds me of my ex DP who was aghast for about 4 years straight that no one in my family liked turkey so we had beef for Xmas. His mother called my mother to clarify it was true (after a drink) and I’d go round to theirs over the Christmas period and the whole (large) family would be saying things like “I can’t believe you don’t have turkey on Christmas dinner.” “It’s not Christmas dinner without” “without turkey it’s tasteless” (????) “you must buy a turkey and a ham for Xmas even if it doesn’t get ate its tradtition” from the same people who buy 3 turkeys (Xmas day, New Year’s Day redo, then another on Easter(!!!!))

anyway I digress, I loathe it!

OP can you link to any of these threads policing Christmas lunch/dinner?

I like small rebellions and am doing a buffet this year based around dh and DD's favourite foods and then salads I fancy trying out. Spicy meat dishes with cooling salads, pizzas and dips. Dh usually cooks so I'm quite looking forward to trying out some new recipes alongside the old favourites. Guests have been warned and the menu shared and opted in to joining. They know that if nothing else the booze will be good 😂 and if mumsnet on masse disapproves it'll make it taste even better. Going non traditional now and then is good for the soul!

What about jam and clotted cream ? 😬😋

If there’s a Yorkshire there you don’t have to eat it. Or you can put one on If you like them it really shouldn’t be an issue as adults…. Everyone can have what they want without it being an argument 🤣

The word dinner means main meal of the day. 😀

See also, school dinners.

We have pizza for Christmas dinner😁.

They’d have absolutely hated my family! We always had Mexican food for Christmas (spent several years living miles from the Mexican border - we make our own from scratch). Tacos, enchiladas, chips, guacamole - the only thing we “ordered out” was the tamales as Grna had a friend who would make them from scratch to sell over Christmas. I still have my Gran’s taco sauce recipe and I’m hoping to make it during this Christmas period.

As I'm in the Antipodes, where most states and territories call the middle of the day meal LUNCH or DINNER interchangeably and the evening/night meal can be called DINNER or TEA (depending on whether one's ancestors were British or mainland Europeans), you can call it what you like.

The post 1990s modern Australian "new tradition" is to have the protein part of the midday xmas meal include seafoods or fish. The out and out favourite choice for many families is prawns ... as many as you can afford.

There is still a rump of traditionalists out there who cover the old style protein foods of roast beef, legs of lamb and massive leg hams.

The years I feel like a change from seafood on an unseasonably cool or wet xmas day, I prefer a big grilled porterhouse or rib-eye beef steak with a garden salad.

(At 70 years old and xmas #71 only a week off now, I can say I've not ever eaten tasteless gawd-awful bl00dy turkey at xmas lunch/dinner. I can count on one hand all the times in my life I've ever eaten turkey other times of the year.)

But, I guess, the best thing about this xmas will be the Aussie team going 4-0 in the Boxing Day cricket test. It's 4pm on Day 2 of the 3rd test and England are deep in excreta and currently 0-2 in this series.

Suck it up, Englanders!

Im northern and say lunch

I hadn’t noticed any threads policing Christmas dinner / lunch.

But this thread appears to be doing a good job of filling that void.

My family was Irish and we say dinner and we do mean dinner in the evening. We're in the Antipodes so it's the middle of our summer. My husband doesn't like turkey or days spent eating turkey leftovers. I am just contemplating what we will have for dinner and toying with the idea of a beef wellington now that I have acquired a meat thermometer. Or perhaps lamb or fish. Nobody cares what I am planning to serve.

You have got to be a man @IainTorontoNSW

My in laws had eaten the same meal at Christmas for 40 years until I insisted that we hosted one year (to give poor MIL a break) and they loved something different. Now we alternate. I agree it’s ridiculous, for no real reason, to say anything is the way it should be for ever and ever just because that’s what you always done. This applies to pretty much anything. Change is vital.

Is North Yorkshire northern enough? Whilst I wouldn't have corrected the OP, we eat lunch and dinner in our house.

We love Turkey , stock up when they’re reduced and often bemoan the lack of availability outside of Christmas / Easter time - one year we ended up with 8 in the chest freezer

I have my dinner at dinner time. Mid day 😉

I don't care what people have for Christmas dinner ( its dinner not lunch ).
We have always had turkey, no Yorkshire puddings, though they are delicious.
I love the smell of turkey cooking in the oven, its the smell of Christmas to me.
Eat whatever you like, It's not as if I going to yours for Christmas so I have no say in put you have. Merry Christmas!🎅🤶

My mother decided one year that no-one wanted the cocktail sausages/pigs in blankets!!!!!!

there was a mutiny on Xmas eve!!

we were all teenagers. It’s still referred too.

I have a ‘no one wants xyz’ / ‘I don’t want xyz’ mother too. It cheers me to find I’m not alone. Usually used in ‘nobody could possibly eat any pudding’ context, with the undercurrent of unsaid ‘unless they are total pigs’. She gets overruled every year by us pigs.

Oh, I'm sorry you had to go through that. The damage and trauma caused by one reckless decision......😂

I haven’t seen threads policing food but plenty on when people out their decorations up and more so when they take them down. Just let people be.

I don’t like turkey, prefer beef or gammon or even chicken ! But this year we have FIL and he would be disappointed with no turkey lol

I must admit to being the Christmas dinner police. It's not Christmas dinner without bread sauce and sprouts! We need the Christmas dinner police or it all goes to pot

We have beef for Christmas dinner!

People having pheasant or goose for Christmas dinner are just having notions! It must be turkey!