What time do you eat your main Christmas meal?

[bantuknots73]

I don't celebrate Christmas but growing up I always loved hearing what other families do on the day. All the people that celebrate in my family usually have their Christmas meal around 8/9pm. Most of my friends and their family usually have their Christmas meal anywhere between 6-9pm. However my English friends tend to have their meal around 12-2pm.

It was always a running joke in school (and still now between us friends) that it's a black thing to have your Christmas meal really late in the day whereas white people tend to eat earlier on instead. Obviously this is just a generalisation based on our friendship group but I wondered what everyone else does. How does the eating arrangements work in your household?

When its ready!

That depends on when we get up, what we have for breakfast and what we do.

This year we've had a full English for breakfast and are stuffed so will skip lunch. Plan is to aim for 4 or 4.30pm for early dinner.

We often have cheese and biscuits later in the evening. Not sure we will manage that today.

But generally speaking we don't have a set time.

Also when it's ready!

When the DC were small we'd eat at lunchtime. They are grown up now and we all sleep late so these days we eat at 6 or 7.

We usually eat ours around 5ish after a mad frenzy of getting it ready, but this year we seem to be having a weirdly chilled out Christmas and it will be ready in about fifteen minutes from now! Never had such a calm and pleasant Christmas morning, it's been lovely

The turkey's just come out of the oven, so we'll be eating in about an hour or so - about to start the spuds and snips off, ham's in the oven, so's the stuffing and the pigs in blankets. All under control, and to schedule as there isn't one!

Usually between 1 and 2 - I aim for 1 but it rarely works out!

Isolating today so no rushing around hosting - I think we will eat between 5 and 6.

Around 6 - starters for lunch at 12.30- calamari tempura prawns smoked salmon, roe, avocado prawn cocktail etc.

Normally we eat about 5-6 pm but I'm working tonight night duty and start at 7pm so having meal about 3pm. No bucks fizz breakfast or after dinner baileys for me this year, sadly 😞

Ate ours about 1pm.

Today it will be about 4.30

Normally start about half 1. We have 4 courses. This year it is just us and the 3 kids, no extended family, so we are going with the flow. We started just after 12 today with our appetisers and soups. The capon is cooked and resting, roast potatoes ready to go in the oven, veg all prepped too so when people start saying they are getting hungry I can start cooking the rest.

Feels so nice not being tied to the kitchen and so much more relaxed.

We were caught off guard (probably because we just had a small joint of beef). We sat down at about 1:30pm

We had a light breakfast at 9:30/10 so planned to eat "2ish". With lots of guests we'd have waited until after the Queen's speech.

The weather is a bit 😑 otherwise we'd have gone for a walk and/or sat outside with a bottle of fizz.

We might tackle some cheese and biscuits at 7ish.

Merry Christmas, whatever your meal plans.

1ish for us. 2 Small DC so a lunch time Christmas meal is easier for us. When I was young it would usually be about 3pm (not no food was allowed before that)

It all depends on what time I get up.
Only just took the turkey out & put the gammon in. So we're are looking at 4/4:30ish last Xmas I was up earlier and dinner was done by 3ish. When the DC were younger we probably ate earlier but only because I was up much earlier or cooked the meats the day before to save some time & sanity 😁

Always intend to have it earlier in the day but usually ends up being between 4 and 6 ish. I reckon we"ll be about 4.30 today

We get up early to walk the dog and don't have a fancy breakfast so we eat Christmas dinner around 1.30.

When it's ready and when we feel like. This year it'll be around 6pm

About 5.30/6 for us probably!

5-5.30pm just our family at home so nice and chilled.

7pm, proper evening dinner.

About 1.30-2 so I can start enjoying the day after.

I'd prefer to eat late but today I coordinated with DPs exW because his DD is having lunch with her mum and coming to us (we'll, my house) for the afternoon/evening and I didn't want him to eat and rush straight off.

Last year she came to us (my house) for lunch and went home for tea so we had to have it early. Sometimes it's just how things work out. If she was here all day I'd do it differently.

9.45pm this year. Always on the 24th, it’s anytime between 8 and 10pm.

At dinner time so around 6/7ish probably

Today we had it at about 2.10pm. We've had it at all sorts of different times, from lunchtime to dinnertime and an odd sort of in-between time (4ish) depending on whether we were doing anything with friends at some point in the day. We don't have extended family with us at Christmas so it's very free-and-easy - we can make up our mind on the day if we like.

We usually sit down to eat just after the Queen’s speech and finish around 5pm.