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!)

Yeah I can’t imagine that either!

I do fall in the cauliflower cheese DOES belong in Xmas dinner though. It’s yummy, my mum often makes a broccoli and cauliflower cheese hybrid.

In my husband’s family you have to have a ball of sausage meat - this is not stuffing, stuffing is separate. It’s just a ball of sausage meat on the plate.

Oh yes I can’t stand that it drives me insane “could you pass the peas” FUCK OFF JANET.

My mum has it right I think - she lays it all out in dishes on the kitchen table, everyone help yourself buffet style and take it through to the dining room.

The most important part is that everyone has what they like.

For DH, that's a huge roast dinner. For DD that's a stack of pigs in blankets and no other meat. For DS, it's a pizza.

If you can’t overdo it on Christmas Day, when can you? It’s supposed to be a feast!

Some of these replies are relating to perfectly normal Christmas dinners 😂

I judged when someone posted a photo of their dinner on Facebook and it had BAKED BEANS!

Double potatoes - certain family members insist on it

Serving mash as well as roasties. Should just be roasties.

Aunt Bessie's roast potatoes.
Yorkshire puddings (just no!)
Packet stuffing
Mashed potatoes (especially if instant)
Not enough gravy
No cranberry sauce
More than one meat
Cauliflower cheese
Even worse - macaroni cheese!
Red cabbage - no.
Starters (not required)
Drinking too much
Tucking in before everyone has sat down
Waiting until mid afternoon before eating
Bought desserts (except Christmas pudding)
Plating up so everything is piled onto the plate whether you want it or not.

That's about it I think... I'm fairly easy about veg... I have my preferences but I'm not that fussy. 😁

I agree with @mondaytosunday and think Turkey has loads of flavour. I’ve always found that many people cook it for way too long but if you buy a good quality Turkey and cook it for the right length of time, it’s full of flavour and moist. I usually buy around an 8 or 9 kg Turkey and aim to get it in the oven for midday, ready to be carved at around 5. We usually finish eating at about 7, so there’s still time for a very small late night turkey sandwich at about 10pm.

I think lots of people on this thread would think Im a heathen but I loathe most vegetables and have always cooked things tjst I know I will eat as well as sprouts, carrots, and the usual trimmings. Im not sure I could eat roast Turkey or chicken without loads of bread sauce, cauliflower cheese, or sweetcorn - but when both of our mothers used to come to us for Christmas, they both wolfed them down. I’ve never served Yorkshire puddings with Turkey - I always think of them as strictly something I cook for my husband when he has roast beef.

It was supposed to be lighthearted, not an opportunity for you to bang on about your political agenda.

I judge fully able adults that don’t lift a finger to help. I judge people who hinder the workers (while not actually doing anything) even more. Things like leave useless stuff on the bench while people are working, show up late with warm drinks if their job was soft drink etc.

My family take food very seriously and can be very harsh critics of each other. My in laws don’t care about food and serve up random whatever. I don’t judge but it was quite the culture shock for a while.

Not judge so much as ponder. Why, for the big meal of the year, we choose to eat an animal so dry we have to baste it in butter; so plain we need to add copious trimmings made from another animal to liven it up; so big it barely fits in the oven and has to reappear in different guises every day for a week; so feared for its potential to poison us that defrosting, cooking and storage of its sorry carcass needs military precision; and is hardly anyone's favourite.

I don’t judge other peoples - I just know what my ideal Christmas dinner is: high quality well hung rib of beef cooked rare / medium rare at edges, m and s horseradish, home made yorkies made in a deep muffin tin, homemade gravy, roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots, steamed sprouts and peas. (I love sprouts with pancetta and chestnuts but too rich with other Christmas dinner food for me). That’s enough for me but the rest of the family also want pigs in blankets and cauliflower cheese, so they are made too.

Acceptable alternative is free range chicken from butcher, gravy made from giblets, home made stuffing (not in balls or stuffed into dressing - a small tray, homemade bread sauce, yorkies and the rest as above.

The important thing for me is that everything is perfectly cooked, warmed serving dishes and warmed plates. And hungry people!

Rubbish gravy. Weird stuffing. Turkey that's had far too much done to it. I just like keeping it simple, Bisto gravy, Paxa stuffing, a pre-prepared turkey, no starters. I don't want to spend Christmas eve and Christmas day doing all the prep as the presents are the more important part! Just like a nice roast dinner and we'll have dessert later on maybe if there's room.

Needs to have yorkshire puddings!

Blimey this sounds like our house. Dh does most of the cooking in our house but as a non meat eater his roasts leave a lot to be desired . I make them so much better and really miss my mums Christmas food even aged 62. Neither dh nor ds give a monkeys about food and we have not sat down to eat a meal as a family for about 5 years or more

It is seriously depressing

I was ripped to shreds on another thread for complaining about shop bought desserts but I agree with you. I would rather go without - it’s very easy to whip up a cheesecake or a crumble if you’re not much of a baking enthusiast, takes next to no effort and sooooo much nicer than a defrosted M&S Yule log. I’d just rather not have pudding at all.

You can all judge me this year - we are having lasagne! LOL LOL

It was a tradition when our girls were younger to have an xmas meal on xmas eve at my parents and then on xmas day have lasagne as I could make it the night before and enjoy xmas day with the kids. My now grown up kids have asked for it again this year!

To be fair I flipping love a lasagne!

Political 😅🤣

It basically has to be exactly the way my mum made it. Must have croquettes, two types of stuffing, gravy and bread sauce, roasted veg, sprouts with pancetta, cauliflour cheese and a ton of roast potatoes.

See this imo is far nicer

id love to do the big dinner on Xmas eve after the crib service

then Xmas day have cold meat & bubble & squeek and a smorgasbord of food item for Xmas tea

flowing on the same pattern on boxing day

Both. It’s not Christmas dinner without spuds two ways.

Cheese should be a separate course after the main and before pudding which must be Christmas pudding.

Calling it Christmas ‘lunch’!

Dinner is traditionally the main meal of the day, no matter when you have it. And if the usual Christmas Day roast isn’t a main meal, I don’t know what is.

And people who insist on providing umpteen sides and 3 different kinds of potatoes, plus Yorkshires, and then moan about how knackering it is.
Keep it relatively simple, and it needn’t be.

I am the other way. Eat at 1pm and watch the speech afterwards. Turkey is cooked the night before and all vegetables prepped then too.