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?

With house guests for 6 days including Christmas Day I cooked what seemed to be roughly the right amount I my head. But some food vanished quickly and some were leftovers - hard to predict! The only issue was one of our guests repeatedly telling DH and DS that they needed to learn what a portion looked like. Both are distance runners and return to the house pretty hungry!

Our eyes are definitely bigger than our stomachs when it comes to Christmas.

I used to be a horrible over-buyer in the lead up to Christmas, and end up with tons of stuff left over, that would just end up getting binned.

Nowadays, the only stuff I still tend to over-buy on is chocolate, but at least that keeps! We'll still be eating it in March I reckon!

There's this lady I follow on TikTok with 6 kids. I get that's a lot of kids, but this woman is a massive over-consumer/over-shopper.

I just saw a video of her "left-overs" that she was having for Boxing Day lunch and it was BANANAS. Most stuff not even opened, cheese and meats for days. 2 massive trays of dry AF turkey, tons of stuffing balls.
Most of her kids are under 10 I'd guess. Kids that age don't want endless wedges of fancy cheeses and endless trays of salami-style meats.

Yes we buy for big Christmases but in reality it’s 2 kids and 2 adults who eat less these days. Loads gets left from the day but it all gets eaten over the whole festive period.

I tend not to go crazy at Christmas food wise anymore.

It's only two days really if you count boxing day so not that much time to eat everything even if you want too. I usually buy one nice treat a week from the 1st of December to eat that week. So a box of nice biscuits can last us a good few days one week, and then I made a Nutella christmas tree the next week, and last weekend we had our cheeseboard. You've got to spread it out otherwise it won't all get appreciated or eaten.

I don’t buy or cook anything I know won’t be eaten on Christmas Day now. Loads of fruit and veg but just enough meat and fish for Christmas Day. No biscuits or chocolate and we had a normal breakfast and no starters. It’s one day for us.

When our shopping delivery arrived on Monday evening the driver said it was nice to begin his round with a small normal sized shop. I didn't think too much of it then but its true that apart from the Christmas dinner fresh food, there was mostly just ordinary weekly stuff. We had one tin of Heroes which has been open 2 weeks and is still half full. The pringles have been eaten and replenished and there is one extra wedge of brie in the fridge, a Toblerone and that it.

Ds2 has a smallish appetite anyway and once the normal sized roast was eaten he had no room for any pud until about 3 hours later.

I wonder whether it's the timing that affects appetites? Lots of people have Christmas dinner early afternoon instead of evening when they normally eat. I did the full spread and my DSs (27 and 29) ate loads, but no-one was hungry later so it was basically the only meal of the day. I had made two puddings and baked cakes etc. I sent them each home with leftover cheesecake and sausage rolls.

Boxing day DH and I just had eggs on toast despite a fridge full of food. I had been cooking family meals all week as DC were staying and had enough!

That's a good plan actually, start the treat food earlier, rather than saying "it's for Christmas" and then stressing about it not being eaten or getting beyond a use-by date.

We’ve become like this, actually. The rest of the year we watch what we eat because weight / cholesterol. It’s just makes everyone feel yuck to overeat on any day, not just Christmas Day.

HOWEVER! I too love the taste of all the indulgent Christmas stuff so now we start at the beginning of December. We’ll have a pack of mince pies in a week, first week of December. We’ll have roasts more frequently. I’ll buy a pint of super indulgent ice cream second week of December. We’ll have a tin of a Danish cookies knocking around for three or four weeks. Chocolates = one advent calendar, normally everyone gets one or two pieces over 24 days because none of us wants to eat chocolate every day. And so on and so forth. There’s basically different stuff cooked and eaten over the month, but spread out. Not all on one day.

Lol - cross posted. Seems we’re not the only ones!

We have definitely felt this this year. We bought the usual amount of treats but most of them are still untouched. Haven’t even started on the frozen party food and I didn’t have an alcoholic drink until Boxing Day. It’s made us reevaluate how much we will buy next year as we will have so much left over by NYD.

I would love to eat everything possible, I have a mega sweet tooth but I'd just end up feeling fat and gross.

My youngest DD eats just enough to survive, she isn't interested in big meals or treats. Her 2 older siblings eat plenty.

This year I purposefully bought a lot less food, just a box of biscuits and a posh box of chocolates as a treat and hardly any alcohol.

We don’t eat much unhealthy food as who wants to start the new year feeling they need to lose weight? I think this is a normal attitude to have. We’re adults, not farmyard animals.

Sounds like you had to many puddings. Why did you serve 2 puddings after Christmas dinner? Surely one was more than enough, I didn't even have that, I left pudding for later in the day

We aren’t massive eaters, only thing extra I brought was chocolate yule log, crackers & a box of celebrations. I do find it a bit wasteful of people buying a months worth of food for a few days when half of it ends up in the bin!
one christmas a few years ago we spent with ILs and we had a roast dinner every single day for 6 days! It put me right off.

We've definitely indulged more in previous Christmases.

We had a late ish breakfast, and I had one croissant but didn't want anything else.

We have given up on making starters a few years ago and do have lots of trimmings and different dishes for Christmas dinner, which we load our plates up with. But then have no pudding as we don't want any.

A few nibbles in the evening and we are done. Once we'd have put a full buffet out and it would have been a waste.

Our Christmas food will seem quite paltry to some people. It’s not though but it is manageable, and with no waste. I’m not a big eater and neither is my husband or dad. The thought of having an abundance of food just makes me feel queasy. I like to enjoy food rather than stuff my face for the sake of it.

I love the idea of all the food at Christmas, and in previous years would have baked and eaten and indulged, this year I haven't and I have realised it's just marketing and fancy cooking programmes on telly set up to make us think that's a perfect Christmas, in reality unless you have masses of guests there is too much food around it's actually repulsive.
I can't wait for it to be done and throw what's left away.

I’m a grazer. I like to eat little and often. It’s a bit annoying if I go out for a meal and can’t eat half of it then find I’m hungry a few hours later. If anything I eat less on Christmas Day than I do normally because I'm less active so don’t feel hungry. I don’t eat meat or dairy so the Christmas meal is perfunctory for me if we go trad: basically potatoes and veg plus whatever I make myself that’s not beef (mushroom wellington this year). Obviously no cheese and limited chocolate.

I had a larger than normal breakfast, a few bits of party food, then my main meal at 5ish plus a few snacks in the evening.

Food was definitely my DMs love language too and no better time to indulge this than Christmas with her banquet style spreads.

The Delia Smith books would come out weeks beforehand and the kitchen would be a hive of activity. Cupboards packed to the brim with treats and the garage as back up!

Christmas day and the table would be so laden that it would be groaning with the weight of it all 😄 and it was amazing! We would eat until we were so stuffed and we couldn’t move and then we’d do it all again the next day. At least half a stones Weight gain was a given!

I can only eat a tiny amount. The family are used to me now and just serve up small meals to me. No hassle. 👍

Such a stealth boast 🙄

Yes this is me and my family. There are a few threads on here about massive breakfasts and people eating 8-10 roast potatoes each. They make me feel sick just thinning about them.

You could do a few of these during December, not all at once on Christmas day

I love food but not in huge portions... I spread the treat things out over december. I've had a 'cheese board' on the go (just keep wrapping back up in cling film) since the 19th, still about 1/3 left... baking i share the love with friends and family so doesn't go to waste. Don't bother with pudding on xmas day as kids just want their chocs from santa and never got eaten.