Thing people do at Christmas that seem helpful to the Christmas Host but actually really aren’t?

[Talkingtomyhouseplants]

I’ll start

• Bringing something to contribute to the day without checking with the host what is wanted/needed first. Results in additional unnecessary work for the host who has had to cover that item because they didn’t know it was going to be brought and food that doesn’t necessarily match the rest of the menu but people feel obliged to eat anyway
• On a similar note, people asking what they should bring about 3 days before the big day - this is a BIL special - no thanks my big shop has already arrived and we’re all sorted now.
• People who clear up in the kitchen but put things away in the wrong places rather than just leaving them dry, neatly, on the side.

What else?

Oh god the performative small appetites. YES.

Oh and having multiple “naps” (pissing off to a bedroom to play on your phone) across the Christmas period basically when they’re bored of big family stuff. Like I would’ve quite happily not had Christmas with you you’re the one who insisted on this, stop being anti social or fuck off home.

SIL and her husband are very good cooks and love to serve up a spectacular turkey or standing rib of beef as the centrepiece of Christmas lunch, the rest of us bring side dishes ready prepared, and they mostly refuse to let anyone else help make Christmas lunch in their mahooooosive farmhouse kitchen. But over the years Christmas lunch has gotten later and later... 5pm... 6pm.. 7pm!!... meanwhile nobody has had anything to eat since breakfast so the children are all sick from eating nothing but sweets and the adults are all pissed. Happy times...

Haha. Thats my DH!!! Always in front of the cupboard/drawer I want to access

Promising to prepare a specific dish and in fact insisting on being the one to do it with no one else allowed to help. Then not doing it, so you're left rushing to put it together last minute.

I have one issue as a guest at Christmas. My MIL hosts a party for everyone - and allocates things to buy. But she specifically asks me to make things to bring. So I show up harassed after cooking and rushing to hers and everyone else is serene after just bringing a cheese. It’s really frustrating and I feel like I can’t say no!

Being “helpful” by clearing away everyone’s starter plates. However, clearing everyone’s knives and forks too. Sorry—I don’t have another full set of cutlery for 20 people waiting in the wings. Now we have to quickly wash 40 pieces of cutlery whilst trying to serve up in parallel.

I had a similar experience. Hosting about 16 for a bbq one summer and most bought a salad, bread or olives. I had prepped all day and was done. The last friend to arrive (when meat was going on bbq) walked in and gave me a plastic bag of 4 chicken breasts, 2 peppers and an onion and declared “you can rustle up some chicken kebabs, off you go” she then headed to the table of drinks…

Coming in the kitchen to chat to me while I'm juggling six different tasks so I 'won't feel left out'. Just go away!

I feel like it's particularly brave/stupid to do that to someone when skewers are involved...

Anyone hanging around in the kitchen while I’m in the middle of cooking.

When we did our kitchen renovation we actually put in a small “dirty kitchen” which contains all my appliances and my cooker as I hate people hovering. Now all our guests pile in there and hang around me and it’s infinitely worse as it’s a small space!

I think the OP was looking for things that guests think are helpful but aren't, rather than just guests being total wankers.

When I was first doing xmas, these things wound me up more, now the kids aren't tiny and things have changed, I don't care much:
Coming too early or late (not a couple of minutes, I'm not a control freak, but I mean when you say come for lunch at 2, and they turn up at 10 with presents, and say they'll be arriving for the meal at 3 instead of 2 as they're running late!
Saying "expect me when you see me", instead of agreeing a time.
Giving unsafe/unclean gifts to my toddlers, when we're really busy and less able to intervene effectively.
Running off straight after the meal without playing with the kids at least for a bit.
Expecting my husband to give them a lift elsewhere the minute the meal's over, like I'm supposed to do all the washing up and clearing up.
Not at least offering to help, though in fairness a lot of you would prefer this, it seems!

My (Asian) parents were chatting to me and I was saying what Christmas means in the UK with the focus on family and food etc - I will send them this thread so they have a proper account of the real spirit of Christmas from the first hand accounts of some many UK folk!

DH and I laughed like drains at the Motherland Christmas special where Julia’s in-laws brought the contents of their fridge ( half an onion wrapped in foil, a knob-end of cheese etc) and put them into hers. My in-laws did this every year and all the parcels would fall out every time we opened the already over-stuffed fridge.

Her reasons: 'She didn't want to waste them'

My mum always, ALWAYS arrives at my house at Christmas for a few days with some satsumas, apples and a banana, plus a couple of Activia yogurts, all of which are already on the turn, because 'they'd only go off' if she left them at her house. I've pointed out every year that bringing them with her simply means they will go off at my house instead, but she still does it.

Once I said 'We probably won't eat these, Mum, our fruit bowl's already full to bursting' and she just told me off because apparently I don't eat enough fruit. I actually eat tons of fruit, just not semi-rotten satsumas that have been transported 250 miles to my home in an old 2-litre ice cream tub from the 1990s.

I have a relative who means well but she often promises things and doesn’t deliver. She’ll talk up this dish she’s bringing so, in the past, I wouldn’t do similar but I’d arrive at dinner and it won’t be there. I could have made it.

Ah, OK. To cut through my rant:

Guests think it's a nice idea to talk to me when I am cooking, because they don't want me to be left out. It's not a nice idea. Trying to engage and be polite while preparing food for 12 people is like patting your head and rubbing your stomach.

Guests think it's helpful to offer to help, when they have no idea where anything is in the kitchen. Offer to keep the kids entertained, or walk the dogs. Any kind of help you can figure out on your own that doesn't add to the host's mental load.

OMG, just looked this up. That’s a fabulously crazy dessert 😂

Coming too early or late (not a couple of minutes, I'm not a control freak, but I mean when you say come for lunch at 2, and they turn up at 10 with presents, and say they'll be arriving for the meal at 3 instead of 2 as they're running late!

We've started telling my in-laws to arrive 30 minutes later than we would like them, so they come 'on time'. They are terminally early, always, and the worst offenders for Fussing Around Me In The Kitchen, so we hold them back.

To that point, we tell everyone a staggered time to arrive so there isn't a sudden influx of 10 people wanting to know where to put the armfuls of stuff they arrive with.

And this year I will just be rude to my mum in advance and out and out say, please don't walk in the house and start mithering on at me about the present bag you will have with you, because I want to be grateful receiving gifts and I can't be when you put them in my hands when I'm trying to turn the roast potatoes.

Bringing food to which they have been told numerous times and know someone cannot take. For example chocolates containing peanuts for my nephew who is severely allergic to nuts, cakes containing gluten for my partner who has Coeliacs disease and boozy puddings when they know I can't take any alcohol. Then saying ' A little bit won't do you any harm!'.

I am not the cool but I am the washer upper. I don’t want people to dance behind me trying to dry up - the air is cleaner than my teatowels. And I have a system. Make sure I have some wine and let me get on with it.

Oh God the 'little bit wont hurt' crowd. They drive me nuts. I drive and cook on Christmas day, it is absolutely full on for me. I do not drink because it would be stupid, even if i stayed under the limit. It is simpler and safer just not to drink at all on the day.

YY to the standing in the fucking way....

Also the "pinchers" trying to take a pig in blanket or roastie when I've just put them in the serving dishes, just before they're served up.

Random food arriving - MIL never says what she is bringing. She wants to pop into Waitrose on her way up and get whatever she fancies. Used to wind me up a treat, now if it is easy to include i do otherwise i just ignore it and any requests to have it served. I still can’t find the grace to eat it myself though.

Frittata with Christmas dinnner? No chance, but you can have it with the ham on Boxing Day because I am less busy.