to be utterly hacked off because my dp has invited most of his friends round for a full roast dinner on Boxing day?

[itsmeolord]

I am so not amused.

I am cooking Christmas dinner for our two children, dp's brother and two of his friends as their family are all in Australia.
Absolutely fine. Looking forward to it.

DP has informed me this week that he has invited 14 people round on Boxing day for a roast with all the trimmings.

1. We cannot seat 14 people plus our own family makes 18.

2.He is expecting me to sort and pay for all the food. No fucking chance I said.

1. After a mad Christmas day the last thing I want is to be cooking and entertaining all of his friends, I won't get to sit down and relax on Christmas day, I never do. Now I am expected to slave in the bloody kitchen onBoxing day as well whilst he gets pissed and generally gets on my nerves.

1. After mentioning that actually we haven't got anywhere to put all these people, he then came out with the classic; "oh don't worry, I've thought of that we can go to XX's house, he's got the room and you can cook for us all there!"

I don't even know where to begin with this one, am starting by telling him that he can fecking well cook if he wants to do the full roast thing.
Please give me some ideas though, this one deserves maximum punishment.

ooh! in 2 weeks time i am feeding 23 people in my home,

homemade soup/ pate and crackers

turkey and everything,

christmas pud,trifle, mince pies

brandy butter etc,

cheese and biscuits,
with port.

coffee and mints.

am torn between really looking forward to it and dread......

It was Mary Magdelene

Mary Magdalene refused to do the cooking as she had to pop out to buy spikenard (she said, it seemed to take her about 5 hours, honestly she is such an airhead). Jesus said he would get in a few matzo, which to be fair he did manage, and as always promised that the disciples would bring a bottle each but did they? Judas rushed off in the middle without even saying thank you, and slammed the door behind him so Elijah could never have got in. Anyway, the whole lot were unbelievably rude as per usual, you wouldn't believe what they said the matzo and wine tasted like in the end.

Tell him to uninvite them, or that he will need to sort the entire thing out, or that you will accept him booking a restaurant/caterer and a hall for it.

YANBU.

ROFL at choosy

Agree with the others.

If it was me and I felt the way you do I would tell him to uninvite them otherwise I would tell him that I will ring them all and explain what a dickhead he is and that really you do not want 14 guests in your house on Boxing Day. You are spending it with your dp and dcs.

If he gets funny about it I would lay it on the line-no guests Boxing Day in your house full stop.
If he wants to he can sod off an pay extortionate fees for Boxing day lunch in a pub (bet he hasn't thougt of the cost) and you will provide for you and dcs, alone at home.

The only time my dh invited anyone to our home at Christmas without first running it by me(because he was drunk at the time) resulted in me packing newborn baby and toddler into car driving to Mums and letting him tell guests that he had made a "mistake".

Never happened again, ever.

YABU not to stuff the turkey... up his arse!

So book a nice lunch on Boxing day (or pack a picnic) for you and your two children and go off and have fun. Tell him he an come along if when he stops sulking.

you are so not being unreasonable. but then you know that. however if I were in your shoes I would want to make sure that everyone involved knew who the twat was in all this - and I wouldn't trust your dp to do this. If he has to do the backing down you can be reasonably sure he'll be making you out to be an inhospitable kill-joy. If you don't like these mates much and/or don;t care what they think of you, then that's not a problem. but if they're actually quite nice, reasonable people you get on with then I would email them (if you can) a friendly no-big-deal note saying that dp suddenly remembered that he's a shite cook and that you can only get 6 people round your dining table so why don't we all go to the pub instead. / do an everyone brings something buffet and dp will get all the booze in (to satisfy his hospitality yearnings). they'll read between the lines and know he's been an arse - and that you are being both friendly and fair.

I agree with Hatwoman. There's an opportunity to turn this into something quite fun. Everyone has leftovers on Boxing Day - just tell everyone it's a Leftovers Potluck. Get your husband to tell his friends to bring some leftovers to add to the meal. BYO booze. Easy. They're his friends, so he can be on clean up duty. YAB a bit U because you are putting pressure on yourself to be the hostess with the mostess. Give yourself permission to not be perfect and enjoy the ride.

We-e-elll, I'd proceed with a bit of caution on asking them to bring food, leftover or otherwise.
In my experience, that means you providing all the nice stuff (leaving you nothing left for the rest of the week) and the boyz turn up with a couple of packets of crisps.

Anyway, OP, is your DP still sulking or has he been beaten into submission seen sense yet?

YANBU to be upset at expecting to cook it all.

We normally go to a friend's on boxing day. They provide a ham, leftovers from their christmas dinner, condiments and a few nibbles/cheese and invite all their friends to bring over leftovers too. Mostly, we actually make a little extra for it, but we do not ever bring crap leftovers nor do others.

It is lovely, and they love doing it, and there is normally about 15 people there, but not a sit down meal, and not a full roast, and definitely contributions by all who go. but we all know that as they do it most years so everyone knows what to expect.

Its sounds all about him, and your the doormat to cook up for him and his mates

Since its all about him, why not go out and leave him too it. Especially the footing the bill part!!! Then he is welcome to his party Oh gawd tho the mess!!

Woman are far too accommodating to Males and their Larakin missions for a piss up!!

The leftovers potluck thing sounds nice in theory but we are talking about 14 large men here.
They will be loud, leave the back door open all day and tramp mud in and out because most of them smoke, dd's will not be able to watch any crappy christmas telly if they want to as the football will be on, the men will all be drinking beer so I will have 10,000 cans to dispose of.........

It's just too much of an invasion. Its not about being the hostess with the mostess, its about being lumbered with a lot of blokes in the house who will stay until the early hours and make a lot of mess whilst the kids get upset when they can't get to sleep because of the noise.

I have facebooked his friend with the large house and thanked him for hosting the do, I've just been very polite and kept it light whilst letting him know that we just don't have the room.
He has replied to say that he understands and will appreciate it if I go halves on the costs with him!
I have replied to say that he can discuss costs with dp as it is his idea and I shall be at the cinema with the girls.

DP has been told that this is not my problem, if he wants a party he can have one, without me and the girls. He is still shitty about it, it now transpires he expected me to drive him and the children were to be put in his mates bedroom with an x-box.

I don't actually think this has been done with malice - like you say, you NORMALLY do something on boxing day for a few mates..

Now I get that there is a huge difference between having 4 mates and the 4 of you round, and having 14 mates and the 4 of you, but I suspect its just "grown"...or he mentioned the invite in company and ended up inviting all these people.

He probably thinks the cooking isn't that big a deal as you'd be doing it for 8 of you anyway....

I suspect the vast majority of people wouldn't actually come - you can appear wonderful and magnanimous and like uber wife and, most important, save his pride among his friends, by asking him to see how many of this 14 he can actually get a very firm commitment from that they will definately absolutely be there - I'll bet the number is a LOT less than 14.

Then get them all to bring something - bottle, M&S pre prepared veg, dessert, party food platter...

Am at your dh!! you are defintely right to take yourself and dd's out for the day and let him fend for himself!

i would be fuming that he had given his family so little thought

Good for you, itsmeolord, particularly for batting the request for split costs back over to your DP.

Out of interest, was your DP planning on asking anyone for money - apart from you, that is?

I think you are doing the right thing via contacting his mate. Would your DP do the same for you? I bet not. He is 38 you both work full time, there is no balance or respect for you or your children in this situation. At 38 he needs to put his family first, not put them in his friends box room all day with and x-box while they drink an smoke downstairs and you prepare their food. Good grief. I can't believe his friends think so little of you either. Why worry about what they think of you, they'd probably think more of you for standing up for yourself and not being walked all over? Pick yourself up, stay calm, do what you think is best. You sound sensible. Keep calm and carry on.

Nope, it looks like he wanted to be the generous host with my financial backing.....

Fuckwit. Am looking forward to the cinema.

my suggestion only applied if you liked and got with the mates. doesn't sound like you do much - so I think you've done the right thing. leave dp and his friend to sort it out and stay out of it.

I'm thinking you and some friends book a spa day/mad girly weekend and sod off on Boxing day.

Think of it as a Xmas gift to yourself. That you deserve.
For putting up with HIM.

He has nice quality time with his friends (plus kids) and you get some nice quality time with you and yours.

It's funny how some people can be incredibly generous with other people's money.

Why did his friend think you should be going halves with him?? Does everyone think you're a bank?

Have a lovely girly day with your DDs. If it happened to be on the way, I guess you could throw DP out of the car in the vague vicinity of his friend's house and tell him to make his own way home - and then hope that he doesn't do that (not forever - just ideally crashing at mate's house rather than crashing in drunk in the middle of the night)

I earn a very good wage msrisotto, as do most of his friends. They have no children and a lot of disposable so tend to do these things where one will invite all out for lunch and foot the bill.
I don't have a lot of disposable as I have childcare to pay ( around £750 ave per month) plus usual bills etc, I don't think they get that though, so I guess they will just assume its not an issue to pay out for these things.

DP should know better though. I think he might be a little embarassed on some level about my wage in comparison with his, I know he has lied about it before to his friends.
Not my problem though.