No Christmas dinner

[thelifeoofme]

IM NOT COOKING Christmas dinner. I have twins & a 6 year old. There's no way im doing it. I've bought party food, pizzas, pigs in blankets, picky bits & I'll lay a spread on the table. We don't have a dining table either so it'll be a pick n mix - I've been called all sorts for this but I am SICK of spending Christmas Day in the kitchen when I should be with those kids.

Am I wrong or right? An awful mother?

Am I depriving my children of a Christmas dinner & that's whole dinner experience?

Fundays12 "I do a nice polar breakfast with things like croissants, chocolate brioche rolls etc on Christ day."

A nice polar breakfast? 😕

I love Christmas dinner, but I equally love the biggest type thing we do on the evening with gammon, cheese, leftover turkey, bread, salad and desserts. It's at least as good as the hot dinner imo.

I would rather eat my own face than eat pizza on Christmas but I am a total weirdo apparently as I hate pizza. I am guessing you are a normal person who likes pizza, so good for you doing what you like on Christmas.

I made meat loaf last night, sliced and bagged it up this morning and popped into freezer for Christmas Day. Turkey crown out thawing from freezer for Christmas Day this morning.

It's fairly easy if organised.

We do nibbles at 11/12 noon, then main meal around 4pm. More nibbles around 7/8pm. But everyone should do it their own way.

I have a friend who orders a takeaway for Christmas Day dinner, has done for years as she has a huge family. Makes sense 🤷

The only way you'd be unreasonable is if you'd invited people with the promise of a Christmas dinner and then decided to do something else. If it's just your family do whatever suits best.

Not only don’t we do the roast, we also aren’t sitting around the tv watching the speech!

Sounds perfect to me op, can i come? ;)

Just remember that Christmas dinner means different things to different people, esp if you look at different countries!
If we spend Christmas with PIL, Christmas dinner is traditional but in the evening. They are farmers and no way MIL can cook the whole thing in the am.
If we are at my parents, there isn’t a Turkey in sight but we will have plenty of nibbles before the meal.

Just make your own tradition, one that works fir you. Tbh your dcs won’t care for a Turkey.
imo the most important thing for Christmas is a nice relaxed time together as a family. Being together around food is one way to do it. But nowhere near the inky way!!

We don't do that either!

Not sure why you would do that Haa

Sounds like a relaxed fun day, you do you.

Always had the full Christmas Dinner... along with the complaints from the DC.

The year my dad was terminally ill, l watched them open their gifts then left to spend my last Christmas with my dad.

Inlaws arrived at home and then DH did full Christmas Dinner but to soften the blow of me being absent he let the DC choose what they wanted. DH said it was brilliant - no complaints or moaning at all.

We did it that way unti we split.

Now... my family come here for Christmas Day and we have buffet food. On Boxing day the DC go to their Dads and we go for Toby Carvery.

Win win. Really wish we'd let them choose years ago as it has stopped all the stress at dinner time.

@iRun2eatCake I never understand why people insist others (especially children) must eat food they don't like just because it's 'traditional'.
A few years ago there were 2 adverts on TV for supermarkets I think and they both made me so sad.
One had a little girl sat alone at the table looking miserable as she pushed a sprout around her plate with a voice in the background saying something like "got to eat all your sprouts"
The other one was a bit family eating christmas dinner and a little boy asked "can I have ketchup" and the mum snapped back "NO".
I mean what's the problem if a kid wants a bit of tomato sauce?

I think whether you have pizza, sausage rolls on toast, a massive salad or a roast venison banquet, make it festive. Decorations on the table, candles or fake tea lights, do a toast.

Have whatever suits you. The point is to have an enjoyable family time. I do a roast because my DC love roast and I find it easy to do (but I don't spend forever on it as I don't do all the extras that are weird to me like bread sauce and cauliflower cheese, which I love but not with a roast). If they didn't like it we'd have something else.

To clarify, I love cauliflower cheese, not bread sauce. I think bread sauce is an abomination and I'm never going to cook it!

Yep, this year I decided not to fuck about cooking a turkey no one is going to eat 🤣 skipped straight to coldcuts and buffet food. Kids are going to love it! Feels wildly subversive!

Good job you’re not the OP or her children then 👍

I spend loads of time with my kids so I specifically cook a roast so that I can hide in the kitchen with fizz and a Christmas movie

I also have twins, who are turning 6 in January.
Last year we did oven pizzas!! We'll be at my mums for dinner this year, so it won't be me cooking!

I was like you. I wanted to spend the morning with my children - as I felt like it was the first christmas they were really properly aware of what was going on (4yo, very nearly 5). I wanted to be fully present. Not stuck in the kitchen preparing a meal they weren't going to be that interested in eating anyway!

Mary was a terrible mother probably lied to Joseph about the father and had a birth in a smelly barn surrounded by animal detritus. In comparison you'll be OK. Seasons greetings to all.

Do what you like!
I'm 38 and I've eaten a Christmas dinner once in my life

Do whatever suits u. I am spending Christmas day by myself- my choice. Have bought myself some pigs in blankets that I plan to eat wjth ketchup, some cheeses and chocolate. 🤣

Can you explain why you appear to be so scared of difference that you would tell someone to feed their children a food they don't like? That's nuts!

Surely it's better to encourage our children to be robust and to embrace difference, than to be so scared of breaking with convention?

Sounds great if it's what you want but Christmas dinner can be done in a easy fashion and it leaves leftovers for three days - so three days of easy food! That's the best bit for me.