Anyone else having Christmas with non big eaters?

[AlertDuck]

I mean I’m not a massive eater myself so I’m not one to talk. But it’s hard to word but I feel kind feel left out of the opulence you hear of with food over Christmas. No one in my family is a huge eater. A part from one of my BILs. It’s actually sort of annoying. I’ve wanted to bake and just indulge. But tbh so much goes to waste.

For example i made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. They went down a treat. Mostly finished. I planned to do absolutely tiny amuse bouche but everyone said don’t bother they are still full. So we just had the main meal. The homemade apple pie and cheesecake was 90% left even though they were insanely delicious. No one is a competitive under eater or has food issues. The cheese board stayed in the fridge. So many people bought/made treats like shortbread, mince pies. Chocolates were bought and they’re just all untouched. What on earth!

I’ve frozen a lot of it. But I don’t know I’m just a tad annoyed that people don’t really indulge.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a choice. People were genuinely stuffed after the main large meal. We had plenty of alcoholic drinks too

Anyone else have family like this?

I definitely don’t force people to eat. I am close enough to my family to say the pie is in the oven/fridge etc. Or let people know to serve themselves.

I guess non of us want to feel miserly with food

I think we all over buy Christmas food and alot is wasted. There’s no reason to have 3/4 desserts plus chocolate, biscuits etc. It’s only one day, people can only eat so much. I’m a big eater I think but I could only eat main meal and one small dessert on Christmas Day.

Do you feel reading the MN threads on small portions and all the complaints makes you feel pressurised? I don't think it's reflective of real life.

Yes, I've learned over the last few years to buy less and just do a little top up if needed before NYE.

I think you just see recipes for things like cheese straws, vol au vents, trifle etc and want to do all of things. At least I do.

Cook and put it on Olio or something then, or help at a soup kitchen/the Samaritans etc.

This is why having Christmas over a few weeks rather than a single day is so useful - we ill do trifle for new year , the crumble was Christmas Eve - spread it out

I have just waved family and friends off with bags of unopened food from our fridge. None of us oldies eat a lot and otherwise it will go to waste. We arent dieting but just not big eaters anymore.

I need somebody like you in the building

You could do all my cooking! 😂

Seriously, it sounds like you need to do cooking on a big scale. Either for a living or in some kind of charity way. You clearly love it so everybody wins!

I think there’s a huge number of people on Mounjaro/weight loss injections who keep silent about it, but can’t manage the same volumes of food.

No such problems here with a teen DC who is happy to be a food hoover!

YABU massively, we are in an obesity crisis. Food is more plentiful, calorific and extravagant all year round now, not just Christmas. Everyone wants to feed us which is on them and if we don’t want to accept we happily shouldn’t.

Over indulgence isn’t even enjoyable, it makes me feel lethargic.

On another thread people were talking about cooking huge amounts of roast potatoes and how their kids ate half a kilo each, so some people must eat loads.

I'm convinced a lot of the people on that thread were mistaking kilos for pounds with the amounts they were talking about.

I'm not a big eater, one DD is on WLI so can't, the rest are about average. So I made sure that anything bought and not used can be frozen or will keep until we meet again at New Year.

We tend to spread out our festivities over a few days, so the pressure isn't on to eat it all on one day, and I find gradually grazing over several days suits me better anyway.

But in the longer term it doesn’t make anyone feel good, does it? So many people have weight related health problems.

We are like this. Every year dh clients spoil us with hampers- Harrods and fortnums and every year we just end up regifting. We are not big meat eaters, don’t enjoy fancy cheese, chutneys , and find all the biscuits a bit too sweet. My kids were gifted a Biscuiteers gingerbread house which they built but haven’t touched or eaten. We really all have small appetites. The sight of masses of food has always just put me off. And none of us enjoy leftovers too. So we always cook enough for the day. Everyone is different

@AlertDucki don’t suppose you have a spare room? Maybe you’re thinking about getting a lodger? Asking for a friend!

If you’re planning a huge amount of food while also just celebrating Christmas on the day itself then yes there’s only so much you can eat. The festive period for us last until New Year’s Day, so the nice food, baking etc happens, and is eaten over the course of 8/9 days. I also have honed Christmas dinner to include things we like, rather than having 8 sides because someone said it’s traditional. So a nice roast dinner with some extra bits, and cheese/desert for later in the evening.

We have lots of food, it will all be eaten over the next week or so interspersed with plainer meals as a break from rich food.

Was thinking about this earlier. Might be rose tinted glasses, but felt like I could put away more as a kid at Christmas than I do now. I don’t know if it’s because food is different (especially as we use more shop bought stuff maybe it fills us up quicker?) or just the fact that we eat well all year around. So you get to Xmas and you just don’t need to over do it because you can have nice stuff anytime.

Parents ageing definitely has resulted in them eating less too. And I just don’t like feeling overly full anymore. I think there’s pressure to buy loads as no one wants to look stingy but the collective food waste across the country is pretty appalling

I don’t know how people eat a massive breakfast, big lunch and then buffet at teatime. I can only do one of those in a day. We don’t buy big tubs of chocolate, perhaps one fancy bar and some Turkish delight that lasts until mid January. Drink very little and try and eat fruit rather than sweets. Having said that DH is a mince pie fiend and will start as soon as they hit the shops.

We also graze over several days.
Christmas Eve treat was steak for dinner, normal
food otherwise.
Christmas Day croissants or porridge for breakfast, main roast meal and whichever pudding we each fancied. A few chocolates in the evening. Teen also had some cheese n crackers and a turkey sandwich later on.
Boxing Day leftovers meal, some mince pies, a couple of chocs.
Today my treat will be some of the so far unopened Yule log on top of normal food.
Tomorrow finishing the chocs probably, maybe some cheese on top of regular food.
Other bits will wait until Hogmanay/New Years Day. I will buy one Camembert to roast rather than another cheeseboard.
I don’t feel any pressure to buy loads and loads of excess food. I know what we like to eat now as a family and don’t go mad.
Neighbours will always give us biscuits/chocs later on as they buy so much more than needed. I usually donate them to the food bank.

Don’t get me wrong, we eat plenty and enjoy it all, and the teen can really eat, but we rarely have waste as I don’t buy stuff we don’t need just because an advert says so.

No one in our extended family ever wants pudding after the main Xmas Day meal so now we schedule it for Boxing Day, after a cold cuts lunch, when it gets appreciated. My super fit husband likes a large plateful but has never been a snack person, whereas a large plateful puts me right off but I can graze. I’ve also not got a sweet tooth at all - no point in having unwanted Christmas cake or chocolates around since they won’t get eaten - by inclination, not by willpower. We don’t have starters and rarely do in a restaurant unless it is part of a set menu.

I think it works better if people are staying for at least a couple of days.

We don't have lots of food at Christmas. There was only me, my parents and one brother. We had turkey, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, carrots and stuffing. My mum had Brussels sprouts. We did have dessert too. Chocolate log or cheesecake were the choices this year. We have boxes of chocolates and they do get eaten.

Social media food stuff isn’t real. It’s OTT for clicks.