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!

Lamb on Christmas Eve;
Duck Christmas Day.
left-overs of both on Boxing Day.

I hate turkey. This year it's honey glazed ham with Yorkshires and garlic bread (don't knock it til you have tried garlic bread dipped in gravy).

There are only three of us this year and my son and I are veggie so on actual Christmas day we've opted for (homemade) pizza and prosecco (lemonade for my son) for our Christmas main meal with a side of crispy roasties. We've done it before and it was amazing and liberating! People I've told are surprised but then enthusiastic for us. No doubt next year it will be a full roast again. In our house the rules are there are no rules. If I ate meat I'd certainly mix up my roast dinner choice each year!

Well, you are being.

We have beef for our Christmas dinner so Yorkshires are definitely part of the meal….

OP I just ignore or join in with the scandal. We have beef every year now, previously had goose. If people are shocked we don’t have turkey (which I don’t find often these days) I just say “oh I know, scandalous isn’t it” and then talk about how nice and quick cooking a fillet of beef is compared to all day thinking about a turkey.

edited for a rogue apostrophe

Not if you’re Northern - it’s most definitely Christmas dinner no matter what time you sit down to eat 😂

We have not had a traditional xmas dinner/lunch for years, we reason if the traditional meal was so great we would make it more than once a year...but we don't.

We will be making chicken fjitia's as we do every Christmas day because we love them & it's my elderly Mil's favourite. She's not far off 90 and is always very very pleased to take any left overs home with her.

It's easy, delicious & there's no competing for the Xmas food in m&s or Tesco, maybe followed by a mince pie or two and a baileys or cognac.

I believe people "police" Christmas meals because they have no small talk and can't think of anything else to say.

It depends where you live. Not every part of the UK calls it lunch. Surprisingly some people have their main meal midday so it's called dinner and supper (God I hate that word) isn't even used.

Nope. I’m London born and bred. It’s breakfast, lunch and then dinner.

Tea would only mean if you had a sort of “high tea” of sandwiches etc about 4pm.

Supper would be a final snack right before bedtime. 👍

I’ve been vegetarian for over thirty years and I’ll never forget the horror from DH family that I don’t have turkey on my Christmas dinner 😂
”I’m vegetarian”
”you still have turkey though right”
”no, I’m vegetarian”
”so what do you eat?! 😱”

If your from Yorkshire then they go on every meal involving gravy 😋

Same in South Wales.

Literally never met any christmas dinner police, nor seen any threads about it. And what is wrong with calling it christmas lunch? Sounds like you are the one doing the policing of people's language.

I’m in the north, and it very much exists in this house. And we eat at 3, so it’s Christmas lunch. Not sure why that’s so offensive to OP.

And I’m only prescriptive about my own menu and traditions- I don’t care what anyone else chooses to eat as long as they’re not forcing it on me.

I also think of it as a dinner as it's meant to be a feast, regardless of what time you eat it. Lunch is a light meal.

I'm not the Christmas police for others but I am for myself.

I will have a proper Christmas dinner but with what I want. I want turkey, Yorkshires and mint sauce for instance.

And yes, if someone invited me for Christmas dinner and it was something very different then no I wouldn't go. 😂

Surely it’s up to you, we have turkey and have it for lunch - that’s our family’s tradition and probably half of the country do this, if you choose otherwise who cares, there’s people here who have steak and chips!

@PyongyangKipperbang just to say you are doing mash wrong if you think it’s tasteless carbs.

but I agree it has no place at Christmas dinner or with a roast dinner.

I was helping with DS’s school trip yesterday and one of the other parents mentioned this very topic. Well, he’s insufferable at the best of times but he called it a ‘controversial topic’ and asked about Yorkshire puddings on a Christmas dinner plate.

I don’t really care what other people eat. I personally don’t think Yorkshire puds should be on a Christmas dinner plate but who cares what other people eat. Ditto the meat choice. My Mum has a curry. My Dad’s side are Jewish so don’t even have Xmas dinner. I just don’t care too much.

I’m Northern and it’s breakfast, lunch and tea. Dinner is when you go out for a meal later in an evening.

We are not having anything for Christmas Dinner. The only scheduled meal we have planned is breakfast. And even then, we ate having different things.

We just a rolling snack buffet.

It's dinner whatever time it's it's eaten! In the north we often call our midday meal dinner and evening meal is tea. I think most people eat their Christmas dinner somewhere in between times anyway. I'm aiming to eat between 2 and 3pm.

Traditions are what sets Christmas dinner apart from other meals, so if nobody bothered with those traditions anymore then there wouldn't be a traditional Christmas meal and that would be a shame!

I like to keep it simple- I haven't added pigs in blankets to mine or Yorkshire puddings as we never traditionally had those as children- so traditions vary slightly across families and having other roasts instead of turkey is also still traditional, it didn't all start with turkey, that's just evolved in more recent times!

Surely that depends where you are from? Dinner, for us, is around 1. The meal we have in the evening is tea. So we absolutely have Christmas dinner.

The word TRIMMINGS 🤢🤢🤢