Should I subsidise others' meals?

thorsoak

Peter333 wrote: »

I have to say. I am also puzzled with Elizabeth Hull and Thorsoak's stance. I have been asked to dinner many times by work colleagues and family and friends and neighbours, and I can honestly say that I have never ever been asked to help with the meal. It's generally ready when I get to the house! I would find it very odd to be asked to start preparing and cooking my own meal, if I was asked to someone's house for dinner.

I also disagree that people are not being lazy or rude or expecting people to wait on them hand and foot,' if they 'expect' things to be ready or done for them. Surely that is the point of someone asking them to dinner?! When people are asked to dinner, the host generally serves them, and accommodates them. I simply can't imagine inviting friends and family over, and then asking them to prepare and cook their own food. :rotfl:

This is definitely a new one on me, and it's very odd. Offer to help wash up/clean up after maybe yes, but be invited to dinner and be asked to prepare and cook it? What?! :eek:

This is very strange, and yes, I agree it's quite rude and not an appropriate way to treat guests.

Christmas dinner is a special occasion in my house - an occasion when anyone who comes into my home is welcomed as family and treated as family, not guests. And, in my family everyone mucks in, in one way or another (and, to appease various family members salt, pepper, tomato ketchup and even baked beans) appear on the table!

I've never, ever accused anyone of being rude and lazy!

When I invite guests for a meal, a party etc, then of course I don't expect them to peel spuds etc :beer:

But heigh-ho, at 73 I'm old - and in the view of more than one poster, completely off my trolley/out of control - and do I care?:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

elizabethhull

But were originally talking about FAMILY, definitely not colleagues, neighbours, friends. Did your children never help whilst they were growing up ? Did they never have their own little jobs at meal-time, or were they bizarrely waited on hand & foot too ? And when they grow up, leave home, and return for a meal, are they suddenly guests (in what was THEIR home too) and they never lift a finger to help ? What appalling idleness. 'Helping' is not 'cooking their own meal'.
The idea that family would watch other host family members eg moving chairs and not offer to help is anathema.

Peter333 wrote: »

NO.

If me and my lady wife invite people for dinner; colleagues, neighbours, friends, OR family, we would certainly not expect them to cook their own flippin' meal!

In my 50-odd years of life, I have never heard of such strange behaviour.

Come to dinner, but bring your apron and oven gloves because you will be preparing and cooking it yourself!!! WTAF?!

Jagraf

As a family, irrespective if how many of us there are for christmas dinner, we work out who is cooking it in advance (not formally it's just talked about depending on whose house it is). Sometimes it's us kids (in our forties). generally it's the men kids - so I tend to get away with it!! Table is usually done in advance and host has prepped the veg. Otherwise chaos reigns as no one knows what they are doing, everyone drinks too much wine and dinner ends up being at ten pm if we don't at least have some order.

GobbledyGook

A dinner party/meal at any other time of the year - if I'm hosting I do it all, but for us Christmas is different.

Christmas is a big family affair. It's only held at my house because I can fit everyone into the dining room. Everyone pitches in - some cook a dish, some who are staying over/travelling help out with the prep on Christmas Eve and some do the washing up. We all split the cost (I tried once to play the 'my house, my invitation, we'll pay' card and was roundly told off!) and everyone has a great day.

It stems from my Nana and her sisters all bringing various parts of the meal to Gr-Granny's on Christmas Day and the kids getting the job of washing up because no-one would have dreamed of leaving Granny to do it! The tradition has never changed, just that me and my cousin now have kids who can do the washing up.

Although maybe it's not weird (or rude) to us because we don't consider ourselves guests in each others homes - we're just family. Or maybe because I don't get the chance to invite them for Christmas dinner - they just assume they are coming and tell me what they're bringing (which will be the same as last year!).

I wonder how BIL's new GF will find her first Christmas Day with us now! The only person who never liked it was my MIL, but that was because she liked to "host" but her version of hosting was basically to ruin the food, boss people about and generally dictate to everyone. I can't be that rude, there's 15 of them coming this year!

Pollycat

GobbledyGook wrote: »

A dinner party/meal at any other time of the year - if I'm hosting I do it all, but for us Christmas is different.

I think this is the crux of the matter.

All well and good saying 'I don't expect guests to help when I invite them round', that will work if there's half-a-dozen people and you've had all day to prepare food.

But - on a day when the host has probably had a busy week shopping for food/drink, may have been up early with the kids, gone to church, maybe visited family who aren't coming to the Christmas lunch and has a mountain of sprouts to prep - I don't think it unreasonable to accept (as opposed to expect) help in the kitchen.

What some people seem to think other posters are saying is that you will be given an apron, a knife and some food as you step over the threshold and be expected to help.

Most posters are saying 'visitors muck in' (as in voluntarily) not 'visitors will be forced to muck in'.

engineer_amy

thorsoak wrote: »

Christmas dinner is a special occasion in my house - an occasion when anyone who comes into my home is welcomed as family and treated as family, not guests. And, in my family everyone mucks in, in one way or another (and, to appease various family members salt, pepper, tomato ketchup and even baked beans) appear on the table!

I've never, ever accused anyone of being rude and lazy!

When I invite guests for a meal, a party etc, then of course I don't expect them to peel spuds etc :beer:

But heigh-ho, at 73 I'm old - and in the view of more than one poster, completely off my trolley/out of control - and do I care?:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Im entirely in agreement with Thorsoak and the other posters along the same lines. If its a normal dinner party, or you have invited a friend around for dinner, I would never dream of asking them to help, even turning down their offers to help but Christmas dinner is a different matter.


Its usually close family, theres a lot of things to prepare and look after.


Everyone goes to my mum & dads house for xmas, depending on where the married kids are spending xmas day (with us or in-laws) there can be anywhere up to 16 people for Christmas lunch/dinner. That's a lot of spuds to peel! I go over on Christmas eve, sometimes with a brother or sister and we all muck in. We pour some wine, get a Christmas CD on or sometimes just sing our own songs and carols. Peeling spuds is preferable to doing all mums wrapping!
its not seen as a chore, its chipping in, helping mum out, after all, we do invade her house the next day, and she runs around frazzled thinking she has to look after us, when in reality we know we can get up and pour our own drinks.
my sister in law's first Christmas at mums, she asked what she could do to help and she got the task of setting the table. Its what family do

heartbreak_star

Exactly! Christmas is different to a dinner party!

As I stated earlier, my family and OH's get together for dinner. His mum and dad generally prep the day before, but we always wash the dishes/tidy up/go collect people/whatever else we can do to help on the day.

HBS x

tea_lover

Going to my parents' house on Christmas Eve and getting the food ready is one of my favourite parts of Christmas My sister and I get the veg prepared, Dad cooks the turkey, my niece lays the table. Mum supervises Am getting excited now just thinking about it!

Maybe it would be different if there were more of us, or the family was more distant. I haven't lived there for over half my life but it's still my home imo. I'll happily let myself in and put the kettle on.

onlyroz

elizabethhull wrote: »

What the OP 'should' do has been well discussed, but I've been appalled to read that some people think they can swan over to the house of a family member and apparently sit around & expect to be waited on hand and foot. And if that's not the exact meaning, it's certainly the way it comes across.

But that's not really how it works is it? We have people round to our house quite often and cook them a meal. We've had my parents round every Christmas for the last 6 years, and they often come for Sunday roasts as well. We also had some other friends round for a Sunday roast a few weeks ago. We most certainly wouldn't expect them to help with either the preparation or the cleaning up afterwards. However, these people "swanning over" to my house for a free meal, and being "waited on hand and foot" will at some point in the future invite us over to their place for dinner.


That's what you do with friends and family - a bit of give-and-take, and everybody has fun.

Kim_kim

foolofbeans wrote: »

This year mum invited herself to our house and she has offered to buy most of the dinner and she will cook it as that's what she likes to do. Win-win for us! We invited DH's parents for dinner but this was only after talking to mum as seeing as she was footing the majority of the bill it seemed fair to make sure she was happy about more mouths to feed. I needn't have worried as mum loves to feed people and has always believed the more the merrier at Christmas.

I'm going to my daughter & her family for Christmas. I'm doing most of the cooking too.
I've looked to see where we need to go to get everything, I'll get the stuff near me & my daughter near her - I'll also get a nice joint for Boxing Day.