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!

This! Even on a menu I wince.

For those questioning that CDP are real, just go on literally any CD TikTok or reel and go to the comments.

We have lunch here in New Zealand and most of us are anything but posh. Even at school it's called lunchtime. When I first arrived here as a child I had no idea what they were talking about on my first day at school.

Can't stand sprouts, they are so bitter. Have no idea what pigs in blankets are. Sausage wrapped in bread?

I just like a decent roast dinner. Apart from sprouts I do nothing differently than I usually do. Sod em.

Same. I’m in Scotland and it’s always breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Tea is a liquid of the green variety. I shall run and hide 😂.

Depends where you live - dinner was at midday where I grew up. Maybe a northern thing?

YANBU.
Mentioned to a group of people no one around ours likes roast potatoes, not even at Christmas, and you’d have thought I’d said we like to kick children as they run past. I think of the UK as having a very freeing, open-minded food culture (compared to Italy, Greece for example) but the amount of people who insist Christmas dinner isn’t one if it doesn’t have turkey (wasn’t it meant to be goose, anyway?) is funny!

Aren't your rules just another variation of policing?

We have goose - far more traditional than Johnny-Come-Lately turkey! 😉

We don’t have yorkshires - my mum was adamant they only went with beef - but they are so delicious, I think they shouldn’t be restricted to one meat. I don’t do them for Christmas mainly because of oven space, and because I can’t make good ones.

I do somewhat miss turkey - it was what I had right up until I met dh, but he doesn’t like it, so we tried other options and settled on goose, which is delicious, so I don’t miss the turkey on Christmas Day, but I do miss all the lovely, left-over turkey meals.

My mum was the dinner police - she didn’t restrict herself just to Christmas - she never allowed gravy - we had bread sauce with chicken or turkey, apple sauce with pork, parsley sauce with gammon and horseradish or mustard with beef. And tomato ketchup was only allowed on a few meals. Suggestions of gravy or ketchup any other time were dismissed with the statement that she didn’t spend time cooking so we could drown the food and not be able to taste it.

Even though she died 2 years ago, I can still feel her disapproving gaze when I transgress any of her rules - but I don’t let it stop me!

Tradition for traditions sake is bonkers. Have what you want for Christmas dinner.

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/CzBrHLjLkdE

😁

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

God how restrictive! Sorry for your loss.

you could always make Yorkshires ahead of time freeze them and reheat them! Or even a day or two before and put them in the fridge. Only take a few minutes and would be done by the time you’ve served everything

Hang on...before I get any further.than your second sentence are you saying that your mother is a cross dressing police officer? I've been here years and can't be deciphering new abbreviations.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius "We have goose - far more traditional than Johnny-Come-Lately turkey! 😉” - you’ve reminded me that the first Christmas after my father died, to ring the changes, our family started a tradition new for us, of roast goose, which I carried on as much as possible later with my own family, whenever I could find goose to cook. (My father would have loved goose rather than turkey, I suspect the reason we didn’t have it when he was alive was my very traditional grandparents and my mother carrying her own family’s traditions.) Trouble is, a large goose will just about stretch to six people with small appetites and we don’t have enough oven space to get two geese for a minimum of ten people! Hmm, that’s got me thinking, I might see if I can get a goose for New Year’s Eve.

Little sausages wrapped in a little bit of bacon. 👍

I’m sure a good many of us used to have school dinners.

TBH people who call it ‘Christmas lunch’ remind me of those people who say ‘Between you and I…’ mistakenly thinking it’s correct.

Yorkies are definitely acceptable on a Christmas roast. I shall be doing those with a nice, crunchy suet pudding too. Yorkies are integral to any roast.

I am, however, cheating by using aunt bessies large yorkies as they were on offer and I figured they are a potential spanner in the works.

I'm northern - Lancashire born and bred. We've always done breakfast, lunch, dinner. And our Christmas dinner was always in the evening.

Turkey is grim
Mashed potatoes do not belong on a Christmas dinner
Bread sauce is vile
Always Yorkshire puddings
Ketchup on any roast dinner is a prison-worthy offence

I will throw my hat in the ring for the lunch/dinner debate. The meal dictates the moniker rather than the timing. Ie a hot meal at midday or in the afternoon/ evening is a dinner, but a cold sandwich midday is lunch or a light bite in the afternoon is a tea. ‘Christmas Supper’ should absolutely be mocked at all opportunities though.

Johnny-come-lately? Did Farage spout that at you? Flag shagging propaganda, sorry. The Tudors started the Christmas turkey, Henry VIII loved it more than his wives and Queen Victoria was well up for a gobble at Christmas.

It's noticeable in primary schools that the hot midday meal provided by the school kitchen is referred to as school dinner, while a midday meal brought in by the children is called a packed lunch. Both meals are consumed at the same time yet one is a dinner and the other a lunch. This suggests to me that the content of the meal is at least as important as the time of day as to whether it's lunch or dinner. Dinner implies a hot meal while lunch can be as basic as a sandwich and a bag of crisps. No child has ever brought in a packed dinner!

In conclusion, Christmas dinner is definitely a dinner, irrespective of the time at which it is consumed.

I have never had this liquid bread 🤣

Is it an English thing? It sounds…like wallpaper paste.

😂

I voted YABU because I don't see many Christmas Dinner police - but over the years I have had both turkey and beef roast dinners, I've had ham, egg & chips, I've had steak, we did lasagne one year when we didn't have a functional kitchen, this year I'm going out for a curry on Christmas Day and cooking Christmas Dinner for 12 on Boxing Day... No one polices or judges though.