That annoying guest - what is their christmas crime?

[MrsWhites]

So everyone has a guest or someone in the family if you don’t host who will do something seemingly innocent that will piss everyone off? Who is yours and why? I’ll go first -

My sister because she uses all the gravy and doesn’t get off her arse to go and make more! No matter how much gravy we put out she will always use most of it! It’s got to the point now where we put the gravy boars furthest away from her so everyone else gets a go first!

Yes, I left that one there as bait for pedants’ (or is it pedant’s?) corner.

My son told me about a great way to deal with that… Before the meal starts, introduce the ‘Phone Box Game’. Everyone has to put their mobile phone into an open box in the middle of the table (you can decorate the box if you like). Everyone can still see their phone, but mustn’t touch it! The winner is the last person to get their phone out of the box before everyone leaves the table. The winner gets a prize, which can be something physical (eg a nice box of chocolates) or something more abstract such as they can choose the most comfy seat when you all move to the sitting room. In the case of a tie, where more than one person manages to control their phone addiction for the entire time, the prize can be shared. However, the real incentive is the loser is the first person to touch or get their phone out of the box, and they have to do all the washing up! 2nd person, dries, 3rd person clears the table etc!
Best case scenario is no one touches their phone and you have a lovely, relaxed meal and fun game together, then you do all the chores yourself, (which you’d probably have done anyway). Worst case scenario, you have rude guests spoiling the ambiance by playing on their phones, but then you get to sit and relax afterwards!

😱
This comment is why emojis were invented!!!! Omfg, what did you do when she did that????

We have two severely autistic DC. One year we tried to do a big family Christmas but it was horrible. Now, we just do what we want, the 4 of us with no guests and it's wonderful. No comments on what we eat, no pressure to look appropriately grateful at every present, no disagreements about timings, just no tension and disappointment.

Yes, you are never going to be happier after watching it are you. And that, combined with booze will just lead to arguments

My mum does this too. "Where's the Earl Grey?" We don't have any because its like drinking air freshener and there's sometimes almost 2 years between her visits. Also requested is salad cream and evaporated milk.

Shall we all agree to meet here again on Christmas Day ... Would 5pm be appropriate for updates? We can call it Whine and Wine.

I have agreed with DH that we shall say 'note that down for MN' every time someone pisses us off from 24-26th.

Wishing you fortitude ...

I was close this year to keeping it exclusive but I have just enough in me to allow them to come. It makes more of a statement if they don’t get an invitation, and the pair of plonkers would end up feeling hard done to

I’ll keep the peace but will have this thread in mind.

I need to know what happened next!? I would have chucked the awful husband out onto the doorstep, I hope the brother and extras didn’t turn up.

This is one of the funniest and most relatable threads Ive read for a LONG time!!! Ive found myself laughing and nodding my head (and occasionally gasping in horror) all the way through. And strangely it has put me in a very festive frame of mind....thank you everyone!

My MIL who I have to sit opposite with gravy dribbling down her chin the whole way through dinner despite many polite indications from the rest of us. Then the fact she just buggers off into the living room immediately after dinner, no conversation. Dull as dishwater.

Not minor! That's extraordinarily rude

Anyone who treats a generous spread of food like a personal challenge to eat four meals in one. OK there is a lot of food, but do you realise that I have been shopping/cooking/planning for days and would quite like to have some left over for tomorrow? I've realised the trick is to get it into the fridge so people don't decide to go back for seconds later on.

I have the opposite. HUGE amounts of food cooked (I'm catering for my adult kids and their partners) but I live alone. I give them food parcels to take home with them but I'm still left eating what's left for days.

The dog really enjoys it when I finally declare that I'm sick of leftovers!

The ones who turn up absolutely starving, scoff all the nibbles within minutes of arriving.
They then proceed to loiter around the kitchen under the guise of “seeing if I need a hand” remarking how delicious everything smells, standing right by the fridge. Basically all they’re doing is getting in my way, trying to hurry me along.
All because they are too lazy to have breakfast before they come to our house.

Love Garron Noone though he's a bit extra-sweary in this one. (1) An Irish person invites you over for Christmas - YouTube. So true.

That is brilliant

Just reading this makes me have palpations. Urgh!

These all sound quite literally my idea of pure HELL! Just my husband and I with our dog doing exactly as we please in our own time. Did all of the above for so many years until it wasn't worth the stress any longer. Merry Christmas x

My entire family are THOSE guests and I’m so glad we don’t need to do the extended family Christmas now. Every year as soon as my arse was just sat at the table my mother would announce “remember your dad needs a doggy bag” before anyone had even started eating. She’d watch like hawk eye McKay every time anyone went for more food from the serving dishes, it used to drive me nuts. The annoying thing was I always made sure I’d cooked extra for them to take home. Then there was my sister who always brought a cooked turkey because she “didn’t trust anyone to cook the turkey properly”, there was no discussion previously to her bringing a turkey she just used to rock up carrying the bloody thing. Hers used to end up in the utility room while mine was served at the table. Then she’d sit with a face like a smacked arse because we never used her bloody turkey. I used to tell her to share it with my mother as dad clearly needed a doggy bag. Triflegate was another issue, no-one could possibly make a trifle like my sister and she’d bring that too again with no previous discussion. The worst part is no-one like trifle except my sister and BIL!

My dad would sit at the head of table like King of the Castle, Lord of the Manor and insist on saying grace before the meal - none of them were religious 🤣. I got sick of his nonsense expecting to be served like a king and bought a round dining room table a few years later, put all the food on top of the sideboard and told everyone to serve themselves from there, he was like a deer caught in the headlights that year.

My other sister used to bring her two kids who were much older than mine and they’d be over excited and fuelled with sugar. It was carnage with her kids being sneaky nipping mine, whispering nasty stuff to mine and generally being awful. I gave us hosting a few years later.

DH and I go out for Christmas dinner now, the behaviour of some others is awful but we sit at our table for 2, drink champagne and people watch, it’s our Christmas Day entertainment.

My Bil comes in and pushes the cats off the sofa so he can sit down . He then reads the TV book or paper holding it right over his face . Then he pretends to sleep all the while listening to the conversation.
We have to have what he wants to watch , even though he is 'sleeping'. If anyone dares to turn it over he says l was watching that! He sulks and shows off , causes rows and walks out of the door if he isn't getting what he wants, leaving my sister in his wake . It's all highly embarrassing and everyone is on edge . He sits there commenting rudely on everything and everyone on the TV . He is a bloody nightmare 🙄.

Could you wait until everyone's seated before you put the plates out?

Hilarious! Is that out of The Viz? Love that! 😂

I love that you bought a round table to stop your father!

We live in a popular tourist area and I got so sick and tired of people using us 'as a base' (which in reality meant inviting themselves, outstaying their welcome and eating us out of house and home) that one year I put all our spare beds in a skip and turned the spare bedrooms into a sitting room and a mini library.