Will everyone please STOP the extremely tone deaf 'Christmas Fridge' threads

[TempNameForObviousReasons]

I see these multiple threads every single year and they drive me bonkers. The four days leading up to Christmas Day my feed is inundated with all the stuffed fridges, it's a complete and utter disgrace. Not just a few posters but sometimes literally hundreds of you all joining in with these enormous overflowing fridges, it's barbaric and in incredibly poor taste. I have already seen THREE seperate fridge threads today alone, it's scandalous... please people just think about what you are doing by jumping on this bandwagon. Now I take this a bit personally and here is why.... There are people in this world who are starving and many families, mine included, are having to rely on food banks this year just to keep our children fed. As in dippy eggs and soldiers on Xmas eve. Many of us are in a dire state with finances and the pressures of Xmas. The fridge threads are incredibly upsetting and triggering. By all means have a nice christmas dinner with all the trimmings but why post it and rub it in the faces of those less fortunate? They will be very lucky to scrape together a very basic dinner for the family this year?

I so look forward to seeing everybody's gluttonous greed in full swing, fridges stuffed full of obscene amounts of food and alcohol that will most likely go to waste. (And waistlines. The greed of Christmas it's all totally out of control and I despair)
All the cheese boards, cheesecakes, cheeselets, and on and on and on.
Honestly I wish MNHQ would BAN the threads, they cause many people anguish and distress.
It is one day so please keep some perspective or even better, pop a selection pack or some small treats in a collection trolley to help all the fantastic homeless charities and food banks ensure more people can enjoy a sweet treat on christmas day.

(Thanks to my local foodbank and those who kindly donated, at least me and my children have a lovely box of celebrations that I will bring out on Christmas Day for us) 🙂

I didn’t open or read the thread but was confronted with a photo of a stuffed fridge as soon as I opened MN. The fridge owner was asking where all the fridge photos were.

Well I've worked hard to give me and my disabled husband a good Christmas this year, and goodness knows I've had some rotten ones in the past. I finish work for a few days tomorrow and I've earned whatever I decide is in my house. I lost my remaining parent in awful circumstances this year. I intend to celebrate life, not judge others.

It pissed me off too. An absolutely stupid post about how much money someone spent on cheese.

I’m waiting for the posts about some bored middle-aged woman about to tuck into a chocolate orange. I read that one year and people were commenting “yum!”

I don’t get it. Why would someone post such absolute drivel?

@HollyhockDays oh god the ‘everyday bag for 1000’…of only! I saw that post and though oh I have to really hide away the mum guilt to bring myself to purchase a £20 everyday bag when my old one broke 😬
@TempNameForObviousReasons i haven’t seen the threads but I get your point….its a tough time for many families. I’m getting less food this year and shopping mostly in Aldi instead of my usual Tesco shop. Also decided not to renew the TV license next year 😢 I just hope this shitty cost of living stops eventually…it really is stressful!
I would stay away from the threads or MN in general maybe. I also get a bit fed up seeing people with pots more money than me but it isn’t their fault that many of us are in this crappy situation at the moment

So you want everyone to go without or not indulge because you can’t afford to? It’s the one time of year people do like to indulge whether it’s because we have the money to do that or because we save a bit each month to put towards it. YABU to dictate what people should post about. It’s Christmas if you’re not happy with people spending then stay offline.

OP, perhaps this is the nudge you need to turn your life around in 2026.

YABU, seeing as on the 30th of November you were getting your teeth done! Use that money to feed your kids.

Why is it the fridge threads that you find so particularly triggering? Why not the gift threads where people are talking about spending £500 per child? Why not the thread where someone thought £1000 was reasonable for a handbag? Why not the private school threads where people are debating which £30k per year school to send their kid to?

There will always be people with more than you. If you find it triggering you need to avoid it by staying off social media and mumsnet. It’s very easily done.

They may be there that doesn’t mean you have to open them, just scroll on

You can’t always avoid threads that may upset you, unless they are clearly titled, but that’s life.

I was widowed a couple of years ago, and miss my DH so much this time of year. - but I don’t begrudge others who have a husband and a full and happy family life, a good time.

Just enjoy what you’ve got - all things pass. 😊

My house literally burnt to the ground one Christmas! I didn't even own a pair of knickers!

I didn't complain about people posting pictures of the beautiful wreaths on their front door because I didn't have one (a wreath or a door).

The fire also coincided with my husband getting the worst cough/cold of his life and he was almost entirely bed bound for Christmas, I had very young children at the time and Christmas could have been horrific for them! It wasn't, because instead of comparing my life to others online I got on with making it the best Christmas I could under the circumstances.

We were very lucky that we could stay with family for a week or so instead of going to a hotel but we were crammed in like sardines, the kids all looked like characters in a Dickensian story.....all topping and tailing in the available beds.....they loved it! They woke up together on Christmas morning and all opened their presents together, santa managed to find them despite the rather rapid house move😉

My point is, we all have shit times in life, getting through that Christmas nearly killed me but it is all just a memory now. Bad or good it rarely lasts.

There are people out there facing their last Christmas with their families, people with young children that won't see them grow into their teens. Wives that are losing husbands, people losing parents. They may well have full fridges but it is possible you have somethingthey would swap that full fridge for a thousand times over.

What on earth is a cheeselet

I have never come across fridge threads, gift threads etc, because I don’t use social media. I only opened this thread because I had no-idea what the title meant, otherwise it would be of non interest to me.
I don’t mean to sound self righteous but l would highly recommend coming off SM.

As you said OP - “It is one day so please keep some perspective”.

We are normally very restrained with food costs. I work in a food bank, I am very aware of the very difficult circumstances others live in. However at this time of year we do spend a little more, sometimes a lot more, on things we wouldn’t buy otherwise. I am also dealing with a new cancer diagnosis, which has ratcheted up the “Why the fuck not” factor.

MN is a huge place. I avoid threads that trigger or upset me, and really suggest you do the same.

I am a working class person who grew up poor. No one is trying to upset anyone in the same way the holiday threads or the private schools threads are not trying to upset anyone. It’s just people asking for advise about their situation. The only threads that bother me are the ignorant benefits ones. I think if sm is upsetting you it’s probably better to come off it but also remember people often are not entirely honest in their posting and that wealth does not equate to happiness.

There are a lot of assumptions being made.
My fridge is stuffed to the gunnels every fortnight when I do a big shop. Not because we’re greedy or gluttons but because I feed a lot of people and I try to do minimal top ups in between.
At Christmas I regularly host 18. Some for a few days, some for a week. So again, my fridge being stuffed full doesn’t mean there’s going to be loads of waste, I’m just feeding a lot of people and multiple bottles of milk and bags of veg take up a lot of space.
Christmas has traditionally been a feast day so yes, people do shop differently and buy different things. We have two meats on Christmas Day instead of a single meat roast for example and offer a selection of cheeses instead of just the block of cheddar. Day to day we just have Greek yoghurt for pudding if we have any at all but when we have guests we offer a ‘proper’ pudding and at Christmas always a chocolate log and a Christmas pudding. Again not an indicator of gluttony. Nothing is wasted. Even the last spoonful of cranberry sauce will be used somehow.

I’ve been a single mum on benefits having to pay back a big debt my ex made in my name. I was then working on minimum wage and poorer than I had been on benefits for many years. I’ve had Christmasses where I could afford very little but the Christmas fridge thread has been running for many many years and I have always enjoyed it. Even when my own Christmas fridge was empty I enjoyed looking at others and seeing all the lovely food and making a mental wishlist for when I could afford it. If it upsets you then click hide but a lot of people enjoy the threads and they are always full of joy. They’re not intended to upset anyone or rub anybody’s face in it and I for one never felt upset by them, even when I was struggling to afford daily life let alone Christmas.

It's not greed just because people have more than you. What a selfish take.

You wouldn't have had to if you hadn't spanked your money up the wall on private dental cosmetics last month. Idiot.

I'm sure all those scrimping a little to be able to help the food bank as well will really appreciate your straighter teeth later on down the line.

What I find staggering on this thread is how vehemently and passionately people are defending the right for Mumsnetters to post pictures of the inside of their fridge 🤣

I have of course noted the OP’s previous comments on SEN etc, but I also can hold a separate parallel opinion in my mind that these fridge threads are abhorrent

Why is no one questioning the desperate need for validation so many people have on here?

You get the subtle Mumsnetters on here who try and pass it all off as intellectual curiosity “I find it interesting to see what others buy and I like to judge etc” (we’ve had exactly this comment on here a few times now).

My god… we managed to live for decades without needing to see the inside of a strangers fridge (if it even is their fridge)….

Is this progress?

You're being silly, I'm afraid. Just don't open the threads, if they bother you.

My family have also been recipients of food banks and I loved the Christmas fridge threads, even back then!

Honestly I encourage everyone to go and have a read of the OPs past threads and posts under this user name, it’ll give you a good idea of the type of person you’re dealing with and it’s not a very nice one.

Also as others have said further up, she’s looking into Invisalign and having had Invisalign myself, that’s not a treatment one could afford to budget for if they can’t afford to buy food. Especially as it’s a vanity treatment and not a necessity, if we were struggling to the extent we couldn’t feed ourselves without outside support, I’d have never paid to have my teeth fixed.

People die everyday, it’s life.

We've had an absolutely horrendous year, multiple family deaths, children and parent hospital admissions, ill health and a life changing experience regarding one of my sons that I had to be signed off work and put on medication just to be able to function.

My mum has been given a death sentence, this could possibly be our last Christmas with her, as we wait for her lungs to turn into concrete with the added sucker punch of secondary left hand side heart failure.

Should we all life a life in misery and see who trumps cards for the race to the bottom?

No we absolutely should not, life is short and difficult, we should celebrate with our loved ones when we can, be happy that we can celebrate everyday wins and the everyday mundane , even if that is, a fridge full of food as the memories around the food/table will last a lifetime.

I genuinely sympathise with the OP — it’s a stark and upsetting change in circumstances to go from planning expensive dental work to needing food banks in such a short time. That said, her previous comments about SEN children, and her resentment towards what she sees as their unwarranted “special treatment”, makes an unpleasant read.

I've thought hard about it and I still can't see what's so morally corrupt about having a celebratory meal once a year with friends and family, perhaps with guests staying for a few nights, and getting the food in for it.

OP, I am diabetic. People post all through this season about Christmas pudding, mince pies, Yorkies, lindor and a whole bunch of things I can never eat again. And that's fine. I'm an adult, my deprivation and circumstances are not those of everyone else, and it's up to me to avoid content that upsets me.

You cannot ask thousands of people to censor themselves to spare your feelings. The world is not your safe space. You need to protect yourself yourself.