What do you judge about other people’s Christmas dinners?

[Talkingtomyhouseplants]

Lighthearted - we all know every other family apart from our own does it wrong!

Mine are:

• no pigs in blankets
• BOILED veg 🤮
• treating the Christmas cracker like a competition (we are are each person gets their own cracker prize family!)

We’re custard AND ice cream in my family - we do get a lot of judgement for it because a lot of people can’t with the hot and cold together but honestly it’s the best!

How are they not in prison? No sprouts! But that's religion. They were at the nativity. 🙂

Mashed potatoes.
Yorkshire puddings.
Cauliflower cheese.

None of which belong on a Christmas roast dinner. Unless having Roast Beef where the yorkshires most certainly will belong.

I also would dislike those who have plates of food piled up with too much food, very unappetising and really off.

And a plate covered in gravy. No.

We go to MIL for Xmas Dinner and I love her to bits, I really do..but...the dinner is going severely downhill.

Each year something is changed and not for the better.
Home made puddings turned into aunt Bessie's frozen ones.
The roasties turned into aunt Bessie's frozen ones.
The gravy turned into granuals.
The pigs in blankets went from unlimited supply to 3/4 each.
The stuffing and parsnips were removed.
The turkey changed to being cooked on 23rd so completely dry when warmed up on 25th.

One thing I love about Xmas is the dinner and its getting worse each year, its a bit of a running joke where MIL insists you genuinely can't tell the difference in the roasties 😆. I think this year we are going to do a spread on 24th, time to start changing the traditions a little!

There's 7 of us here so I like to do everyone's favourites regarding the vegetables. It's Christmas dinner after all and it's no bother to me to make different veg different ways. I always put in big serving bowls and everyone takes what the like and the amount they want which works out perfectly for us and we're not eating something we don't like.

What I don't like and yes judge is having your plate handed to you with whatever has been made which is usually dry lumpy mash, roast potatoes which I hate and boiled mixed veg. There's always tons put on your plate and you end up squeezing it between your teeth. I also always judge when visiting and you're shown this enormous turkey and ham and you get one slice of each.

Agreed. But conversely, I have a mate who ends up eating theirs about 8pm, by which time everyone is off their faces drunk and dropping the gravy, and the whole day has been spent cooking, and there's no down time to relax before bed (for her - as she complains bitterly - but then does it every year...).

I have no idea why! Tradition, I suppose. I adore them so I wouldn’t baulk at them in any context, but if you’re serving the traditional turkey dinner, they are definitely a non-traditional extra. If you’re having beef, then obviously they aren’t an anomaly, but having them with turkey is like having cranberry sauce with a leg of lamb…not traditional.

My mum always used to make mashed potatoes for me because there aren’t many foods I hate more than roast potatoes. But I’ve never bothered with mashed potatoes since Ive been cooking Christmas dinner because there’s so much else to do, and just make do with roast parsnips instead.

Oh, no, that absolutely works for me.Yum. Hot and cold together is magic! Like melting middle choc things, or sticky toffee pudding or crumbles with vanilla ice cream. 😍

I'd much prefer to have a toastie on Christmas Day instead of a dinner!

I imagine a few of you will judge me for that! 😂

I think it just becomes too much work as people get older.

Christmas dinners at mine are completely SHIT.

DH is veggie and DS is now vegan and neither of them actually like veg or food in general and it’s the only day out of 365 that I insist we sit at the table and eat a meal together. They will grudgingly eat some roast veg but neither like roast spuds (!!!), DH insists on cauli cheese for his main and DS just wants chips.

I cook from scratch and I’m a decent enough cook. I’m so tempted to book into a hotel for Christmas dinner on my own but I think DH would get upset if I left them both to it.

However, the last proper full luscious Xmas dinner I ate was probably at my mums around 40years ago.

Miss my mum. 😢😢

I’m just off another thread where they’re blithely talking about bisto gravy granules 😱

Yorkshires belong with all roast dinners... there's no firing squad out looking for people that don't abide by the beef=yorkshire rule.

In all honesty, I didn't even know that was a thing...but I don't eat roast beef and I will put mint sauce with roast chicken, so I'm creating food chaos over here 😂

Sweetcorn. It has no business to be there.

@NoHangoversToday I really hope you took most of your wine bottles back home with you!

My gran (dad’s mum) used to come to Christmas lunch with a piping hot tray of ‘her’ sausage meat, sage and breadcrumb stuffing as she didn’t like my mum’s stuffing ((bread crumbs and fresh time and lashings of butter, baked in the turkey).

The rest of us all love mum’s stuffing much more (based on her mum’s recipe) that we always fought over who had that; my other gran ended up playing with us to have some of her stuffing but really didn’t like the fact that none of us really liked it - we’d all have a token amount to be polite but it was always that thing that we were glad not to have when she alternated spending Christmas with her other son and family. These days I still make my mum’s stuffing regularly but if I’m not stuffing a bird I tend to put in some finely chopped softened onion and/or fresh parsley if I have any - yummy and not at all dry.

For veg, I always thought I hated sprouts until I started cooking them myself - no more plain boiled monsters, quick flip in sizzling butter or roasted and they are delicious.

Also need to have plenty of veg so everyone gets their favourites which means as well as the sprouts there needs to be peas, honey roasted carrots, peas, broccoli,, buttery mashed swede, mashed potatoes (for those of us that don’t like roast potatoes), roast pots and roast parsnips as the absolute minimum. Will sometimes add cauliflower cheese and/or leeks in cheese sauce too but not that bothered if it’s just going to be just the four of us at home. And finally need to have a Yorkshire pudding or three each :)

I've never mastered making proper gravy on our induction hob so I buy fresh for Christmas dinner. But we usually have a jar of Sainsbury's TTD turkey granules also. Sorry.

A family member has baked beans with any roast dinner, including Christmas dinner. I don’t know, maybe he’s onto something, but the very thought of it gives me the boak.

My mother microwaves her turkey

It's a light-hearted thread, it's not proper "judging." and getting wound up about stuff!
I say people who have Yorkshire puddings on their Christmas dinner. What's that all about?! 😁 They 💯 per cent belong on a Sunday dinner, but not. a Christmas one.

I don't drink alcohol and I get a bit impatient with those whose idea of a great Christmas is to be falling down drunk by 10am and hungover by tea time.

Fortunately I spend Christmas with a rotating selection of adult children, none of whom drink to excess. At least, they don't when I am there. They might spend Boxing day absolutely blotto, but that's up to them. There's nothing more boring than being the only sober person at a Christmas dinner when nobody else wants to eat much because they're all just getting to the 'headache' stage.

There is no cutting through the richness at Christmas, there is only leaning into the richness!!

I’m not a fan of peas and mash.

Love bread sauce, Yorkshire puddings, cauliflower and/or broccoli cheese, swede and carrot mash, lots of sprouts. Of course PIB and stuffing. Prawn cocktail starter. Can’t help myself. This is handed down tradition! One year my mum decided we didn’t need a starter and there was a riot.

I’m not snobby about gravy granules but I do make gravy from scratch with a roast. It is obviously NOT quicker and easier anyway. Crazy MN talk.

Christmas pudding with your choice of custard (hot or cold 😱), cream, or ice cream. My dad would probably have all three. Or meringue Yule log.

I’m of the opinion that you can serve what you like. I go in with that attitude of it’s just a roast. I do all the sides and extra bits but if you don’t, or you want a curry or whatever that’s fine. For the love of all things holy serve it at a normal meal time though!

I would judge if there were no sprouts with bacon and chestnuts. No roasted parsnips. And no bread sauce. Please tell me there is nobody who fails to do roast potatoes. Stuffing is essential. With sausagemeat. Pigs in blankets. All required.

I agree with a pp sweetcorn does not belong. Nor do peas. Very odd.