NO Christmas lunch on Christmas Day!!!

[Staringatthetiles]

Has anyone ever done this and if so what was your alternative?

I don’t want to go into the reasons why but would love to hear if anyone opted out of cooking Christmas dinner especially any creative alternatives that will appeal to a family of 5 with 2 preteens.

The 'big family Christmas' that is peddled in film, and on tv, and in books, and on adverts, is a pile of shit, because in reality, it's just a ton of grunt work and stress for the women. Men do jack shit at Christmas. (In fact, they do very little in the house all year round really.)

At Christmas, women do the majority of the gift finding/gift buying too, and the wrapping, along with all the food buying/food prep/cooking..

Some women (especially on mumsnet) deny that they do everything, and their 'wonderful modern man' shares the housework and drudgery. This thread shows that's complete bollocks. Christmas would not happen if it wasn't for women. No wonder so many women are now deciding to have it on 23rd/24th, so they aren't missing out on their Christmas day.

The big family Christmas is not a wonderful seasonal bundle of fun, for the poor fucking woman who has to do everything.

So the OP @Staringatthetiles is not being unreasonable to refuse to do Christmas lunch/dinner on Christmas day. If everyone else in the family wants it, let one of them lot do it!

There's a great scene in "A Christmas Story" where the neighbour's dog eats the Turkey and they're the only people at the Chinese restaurant.

when my son turned 8 we decided to stop the sit down dinner, he had new things and did not want to sit at the table, as there was only the three of us we just did a buffet, set it on the table with paper plates and we could just have what we wanted, it was great and so little stress, most of the things we had done in the oven and put on throw away platters, later that night we did the same with crisps, biscuits and cake.

Loads of cheese and pickles and ham and nuts and crackers and bread and well, whatever we fancy! I'm working until 10pm on Christmas Eve and up at 5am on Boxing Day for work so definitely not doing a massive roast! Bugger that!

I'd love to not do Christmas Dinner on Christmas day but I'm so torn because I love the tradition and my kids are still young. I much prefer boxing day, it's much more chilled and enjoyable. Got a puppy in the mix this year and considering whether or not we should put a tree up. As much as I hate doing it, I really want to. Even of it is only for a few days.

We went out for a curry on Christmas day a few years ago, which was amazing. Bring your own booze too which was even better! We also once had pasta one Christmas day, might have been last year in lockdown Christmas. Just couldn't be arsed with all the cooking. Undecided about this year but it might just be a very basic roast. Much more important things to do than to spend the day cooking and clearing up!

You don’t have to have a big Xmas dinner! Yeah it’s ‘traditional’, but make your own traditions!!
We never have Turkey ( hate it!) so we have roast beef , which we don’t usually have the rest of the year. But I would be just as happy with a buffet or a bacon sandwich!
Christmas is what YOU make it. If that’s vegging out in front of the tv eating ‘nibbles’ then so be it!
I hate the pressure for a ‘perfect’ Christmas.

Curry here! We fill the fridge on Xmas eve and have a lovely family breakfast, then after that when you’re hungry you can help yourself. When ds was smaller we would ask what he would like, and it was usually burger and chunky chips, so he’d have that.
It makes us happy, so that’s what we do :)

[quote LittleDandelionClock]@DappyApple

I decided to switch it out one year and did buffet Christmas Day and dinner on Boxing Day instead of the other way round.

Which was just as well as we had unexpected guests turn up at 9 am (we had only been up since 8.30 and not dressed!) and proceeded to stay for the whole day. We had no idea they were coming but it turns out they were expecting a full sit down Christmas dinner. (Despite me asking what their dinner plans were when they arrived, they said they were going to her parents!)

Sod that. I would have said 'we are off out in an hour to the beach., so you can't come in...' Like fuck would I have let a bunch of unexpected cheeky fuckers 'guests' in on Christmas morning!. Who the fuck just turns up at someone else's house on Christmas morning, stays for the whole DAY, and expects to be waited on like they are Royalty?

Nope. Would never happen in our house.

Who were these people anyway? Friends, acquaintances, family? Who? Like I said, what kind of arsehole just turns up at someone's house at 9am on Christmas morning, and expects to stay the whole day? [/quote]
Bil + Sil Apparently!
Although I was mightily pissed off at the time, we didn’t actually say anything on the day as they were young & naive at the time (19-20) and they’d just had a baby, (baby was about 6 weeks old!)He has had to basically fend for himself since the age of 16/17 due to loss of both parents! So we did give him a bit of leeway.

Dh did have words with him for the following year though, after bil mentioned he was gutted that we “didn’t have a Christmas dinner last year!”
He stated that if they wanted to come, he needed to ok with us first and can’t just turn up unannounced with no warning. Also if he arrived at 9 am he’d be sent away to come back at an appropriate time!

I just think they didn’t think things through/along with baby brain and honestly didn’t think that they were being cf. I often wonder what an earth their train of thought was at the time!

But if it was anyone other than bil we’d have told them to jog on.

Yup - we went to the local Turkish restaurant and got fed with enough food to last us until Boxing Evening. It was turned out to be the best idea ever. The year before I had flu and almost felled myself trying to cook three courses for 8 people. I managed to get t on the table and then couldn't eat any of it and had to go to bed.
It worked so well, no cooking for the entire 2 days, just leftovers, cheese, buffet food and chocolate!

I like the idea of doing the Xmas Dinner on Xmas eve then having left overs on Xmas day!! I love the leftovers!

Frequently! We have bbqd a few times in all weathers which is fun. Last year we had giant yorkshires filled with pigs in blankets and roasties and gravy.

We have had an Indian for years. We order a huge takeaway to be delivered Christmas Day. We got all the nice extra side dishes we dont usually get throughout the year. There is usually enough left to save us cooking on Boxing day too.

We've had some odd ones in our family over the years...

Mom decided she didn't want turkey so bough about a dozen live lobsters. My brothers ended up having lobster races in the kitchen. Easy to "decorate" the table too - just covered it with newspaper so all the mess of spilled butter and lobster shells could just be rolled up and put on a bonfire.

Another year we had game rabbit, venison and bear steaks. Very nice.

Frankly I would be quite happy to never have turkey again but have agreed to get the deboned & rolled one from a local farmer as it's very easy to pop in the frig and oven. DH will insist on vile sprouts of course but he'll be cooking so that's his choice.

When I was growing up we had Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve my mother was Danish and they celebrate Christmas Eve .I cook every year don’t like Turkey much but my husband is such an old fogie

Used to do Indian takeaway with a couple of friends. They'd order on Christmas eve and we'd heat it up for Christmas day. Very enjoyable. I've also been to a hotel for Christmas dinner which felt rather lush. Did a proper Christmas dinner last year because it was friend's husband's (who was my brother from another mother) last Christmas. She and I will probably do "Christmas" together this year and it will be very muted because neither of us will be feeling it. We might have a roast and we might go for something else entirely. She may go to have it with one of her brothers and his family. We're playing it by ear. I think we should all do what feels right for us at Christmas and not feel that we absolutely, positively have to have turkey and all the trimmings if we don't fancy it.

My daughter does a buffet for her family and allows the children to graze throughout the day. It isn't all homemade, supermarkets do lots of lovely bits that the children enjoy. It has stopped the stress for her as the children often didn't eat much of a roast dinner, and it seemed a waste of her time and money.
I just love the traditional dinner, and don't find it much of an effort. I prepare everything on Christmas Eve,so on the day it's a doddle.

Each to their own and do what suits your family but I’m not sure I understand some of the logic on here either about doing a roast on another day or cooking a curry or a different meal. It’s just a roast dinner which shouldn’t involve that much work unless you’ve invited the world and his wife to eat with you and surely cooking a curry is just as labour intensive. Also what difference does it make having the roast dinner on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day - same shit different day! Unless you have to work, what else are you doing on Christmas Day other than opening presents (which is normally a frantic 30 minutes first thing in our house) and eating/drinking?

@Inastatus

Each to their own and do what suits your family but I’m not sure I understand some of the logic on here either about doing a roast on another day or cooking a curry or a different meal. It’s just a roast dinner which shouldn’t involve that much work unless you’ve invited the world and his wife to eat with you and surely cooking a curry is just as labour intensive. Also what difference does it make having the roast dinner on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day - same shit different day! Unless you have to work, what else are you doing on Christmas Day other than opening presents (which is normally a frantic 30 minutes first thing in our house) and eating/drinking?

We cook a curry or different meal because we generally prefer eating them to eating a roast. It’s not about the cooking time, it’s about eating something we really want to eat!

@ThePoisonousMushroom - yes, I understand that some people might prefer to eat other things. What I don’t get is people saying they cba with cooking a roast on Christmas Day so they do it on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day or they cook something else not because they prefer it but because they think it’s less work.

We've had homemade pizzas 4 years running now

I understand the logic of having a roast on one of the other days instead of Christmas. It means you don't have to fight everyone in the supermarket for carrots/sprouts etc and takes the stress out of it. Obviously wouldn't apply if you had the roast as close as Boxing Day, but if you put it off to 27-30 Dec it makes sense.

One year I was totally on my own, it was brilliant lol. I bought half of M&S on Christmas Eve and ate it on Christmas Day, in my joggers, watching what I wanted and generally not moving much.

Loved it

[quote Inastatus]@ThePoisonousMushroom - yes, I understand that some people might prefer to eat other things. What I don’t get is people saying they cba with cooking a roast on Christmas Day so they do it on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day or they cook something else not because they prefer it but because they think it’s less work.[/quote]
We don’t have a roast Christmas dinner as we don’t really like it and it takes too long to prepare and cook on Christmas Day when we’d rather something quicker and easier.

We're not doing Christmas dinner. Still deciding what we will have but kids are swaying to party type food. It's only the four of us and every year I've been stuck in the kitchen doing dinner too many times! Want to have fun with my kids (until they think I'm totally uncool and hide in their bedrooms 🤣)