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!)

No pudding with Christmas dinner. We love a pudding but just tend to eat it later in the day.

I judge myself for how damn long it takes me to cook the dinner. Granted I cook quite a large quantity but it takes me hours. I seem to start at breakfast but still don't end up serving until somewhere between 3 and 5pm; only 3 if it has gone great!

Prepare the day or two before.

All.my veggies are peeled and par boiled etc all by Christmas Eve.

Sweetcorn is now included on our Christmas dinner because it is one of the only veg my daughter eats. We don't have a starter so we have plenty room for Christmas dinner. We no longer have Christmas pudding as we were eating it at midnight one year 😆 My husband used to make The King's cake which is a French dessert. It is bloody delicious. I might have to persuade him to make it this year. My dad's Clootie Dumpling is also a Christmas staple unfortunately he is too ill to make it this year. So I might have to take over this tradition.

We are canapes to start ((haven't decided what yet) then porchetta, turkey, onion tart, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, stuffing, carrots, sprouts, gravy, cranberry sauce, christmas pudding and cream or ice cream. Definitely no room on the plate, table or oven or my stomach, or time for anything else.

The only think I've ever judged was the one Christmas dinner with in laws where they put meat in nearly every veg and left me with practically nothing I could eat as a veggie.

Otherwise I'm generally delighted by being cooked for!

Best description of prawn cocktail ever!

I do like a Yorkshire, regardless of which meat is being served, so that probably means I get judged by others!

Packet bread sauce.

Bread sauce out of a packet is rubbish compared to home-made, and it isn't at all difficult to make although it probably does work out more expensive factoring in the double cream and butter. I could understand packet bread sauce for reasons of economy but otherwise people are really missing out by not making their own!

That they feel obliged to eat and prepare and spend a fortune on foods they don't enjoy.
I'm an otherwise well behaved citizen who refuses to cook a turkey and eat Christmas pudding.

I do sweet potato mash with Christmas lunch. This is in addition to roast potatoes. Sweet potato mash is lovely with gammon.

Never understood cauliflower cheese though!

I don’t judge.

My DM allocates one per person and serves boiled potatoes along side. We don't eat Christmas dinner there any more.

Ooh, sick burn! 👏😄

Those who insist on having a Christmas pudding because it’s traditional even though they don’t like it. I just get some desserts we do like. I find it too heavy and rich anyway.

• Can’t stand pigs in blankets personally
• Cauliflower cheese at Christmas?! It’s nursery food
• Broccoli is a Mediterranean vegetable
• Yorkshire Puddings are not for Christmas

I grew up in America and cannot understand the marshmallows in sweet potato thing. Like it’s sweet enough!
I also don’t understand why people think turkey is boring. It has flavour - maybe people need to try a different way of cooking it! And you don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to stick it in the oven - it’s dry because it’s been cooking far too long.
I do judge the families who think it’s women who should do all the work. Often the women set the table, cook, serve, make sure everyone has seconds, and then the men go to watch tv and the women are expected to then ciean everything up. How many times I saw my aunts do this while their husbands sat doing nothing. As if Christmas appears, with present wrapped, cards sent, tree decorated, the dinner bought and cooked, magically without effort. And by the way this is why as adults we think Christmas lacks the magic we remember when we were kids…. Because your mother made the magic happen! Dads too of course (but I bet mostly your mum). Though I also don’t like women who martyr themselves. Do it because you love it, not because you think it’s your job and everyone will be dissatisfied unless you exhaust yourself. Give the other people in the house jobs to do to make it easier. Don’t do it all then moan about it!

Hmm.... Your way means you can fit in more roasties and then eat pudding later on when you've made room, so I'll allow it

My 'separate pudding stomach' is pretty well-trained to deal with Christmas, though

Oops hopefully it's obvious I meant roasties!

Frozen roast spuds and a turkey 'roasting joint' instead of a proper turkey , and instant gravy - instant fine when mixed with juices and veg water but not just water from the kettle !

Only one type of potato - there must be roast plus another.
No butter beans - they are a must, though it may be another peculiarity of my DM's which I thought was normal.
I've got used to yorkshire pudding to please DP, but I did judge.
No Christmas music - what the heck!

I find having it for dinner very weird, it’s so much food I couldn’t sleep if I ate it late! For me it’s 1-2pm so I can digest!

I’ve honestly never heard of the butter beans thing. I think it’s definitely your MIL!

Its just DH and the DCs for us. And DS1 has food issues thanks to SEN with a resulting limited appetite.

Last few years we have the 'starter' on Christmas eve, the main on Christmas day then Pudding for Boxing day breakfast. It works for us. I wasn't vegetarian last year, so I made oysters and smoked salmon terrine for DCs and I and blini with whipped feta, dill and marinated beetroot with honeyed walnuts for DH.

The only thing I'd judge, if indeed that is the right word, would be that there are so many dishes on the table being passed from one person to the next, and the turkey is carved in front of you like some sort of performing art, that by the time you actually eat your food it's gone tepid.

That, and runny gravy.

Oh yes, - and veg that's been overly tinkered with.