From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim said:

...As it is, I think we can indulge LG's love of a 'boofay', or even their delight in a cheese & crackers board...

GP - I just love LG - a child after my own heart! - anyone who dislikes peas & loves a pickety bit dinner is very welcome to come visit & would be fed to the gills on cheese, crackers & gwapes of many colours!

EssexHebridean

I was ludicrously full of glee that thanks to leftover, Monday night's tea became picky bits. I mean - a picky tea on a Monday for goodness sake? That's truly winning at life!  LG has a very sensible outlook on life! 

Greying_Pilgrim

I've just been sorting out the advent, putting in activities, or tying in 'what's going on' to the treat or advent decoration of the day.  I have discovered;

a) 1st December is far closer than I thought and;
b) December whooshes and we will be at, and past, the 'big' day afore ye know it 🤪

Ho hum.  Worryingly, I am more organised this year than I have been in many a year, and it's still daunting - and we do "small" in terms of celebrations/activities and commitments, mostly through choice, but a bit through circumstance too.  I was clearly never cut out to be an 'It' girl 🤣

Right, off to write a shopping list and must make sure that I do 'the money shuffle' - I shall pencil that in for Friday i think. 

Greying X

Suffolksue

Think you can get veggie burgers in Mccyd’s  so you may not escape for much longer !😅🤣

dreaming

@Greying_Pilgrim, I have been following you since pre-LG days and love reading your newer diary. After a few years of family "difficulties" where we all struggled through having a Happy Christmas(or happy anything at the time) and then 2 bereavements in quick succession, my daughter and I settled into a very low-key Christmas Day. Or as DD says "good company, good food, with a tree in the corner". It's just the 2 of us now and we take it in turns to host. Pretty much though it's a Sunday roast for us with a few extra side dishes (mmm, braised red cabbage and pigs in blankets to snack on later). A quick walk, the King's speech, a game of Trivial Pursuit then home. It works for us (and that's all that really matters). 

Greying_Pilgrim

dreaming said:

@Greying_Pilgrim, I have been following you since pre-LG days and love reading your newer diary. After a few years of family "difficulties" where we all struggled through having a Happy Christmas(or happy anything at the time) and then 2 bereavements in quick succession, my daughter and I settled into a very low-key Christmas Day. Or as DD says "good company, good food, with a tree in the corner". It's just the 2 of us now and we take it in turns to host. Pretty much though it's a Sunday roast for us with a few extra side dishes (mmm, braised red cabbage and pigs in blankets to snack on later). A quick walk, the King's speech, a game of Trivial Pursuit then home. It works for us (and that's all that really matters). 

Too true (BiB).  And I think your family Christmas motto ought to be in everyone's cracker, because it's simple, entirely open to interpretation and entirely free from judgement.  I think it possibly helps that I'm not on SM and as yet neither is LG - I mean, there's no opportunity for 'look how much I've spent' type posts off me, and conversely LG doesn't have to wade through images of their peers and chums with their 'moon on a stick' type gift mountains on Christmas day, whilst they nurse a packet of pencils or an orange and 50p wrapped in tissue..... 😉

Suffolksue - shhhhhh 🤫LG doesn't know that they do veggie burgers! 😉😆  To be honest, it's about time that I talked my mum chum into holding our hands and taking us to a mccyd's.  They are very much of the opinion that fast food is the work of  [insert preferred name], however, they have older children who'm they've navigated life with, and therefore are an auld pro at stuff like kayufcee, and mccyd's.  Who know's LG may be underwhelmed and not want to go back in a hurry anyway?  The bit they like about burgers at home appears to be constructing the burger in the bap themselves.  Perhaps we can cut out the 'middleman' (actually probably a teenage 6th former trying to make an honest living!), and stick to HM burger nights.  Contrarian that I am, I always used to have the fish filet burger.......  but I suspect they have changed in the ... over 20 years .... since i last set foot in store.

Greying X 

rtandon27

@Greying_Pilgrim - if t is any comfort to you my dear, I hounded my Ma for a Happy Me@l  as a child - took one bite, spat it out and said 'this is yuck' - Ma made me eat every last bite...

...I still can't stand the Arches of Gold - but the plastic toot prizes hold a special place in my heart 🤣🤣🤣

badmemory

My DS used to love those burgers & then when he was 12 he read an article about them.  Never touched one since.  They do see food differently as they "age".  I still can't get him to eat brussels sprouts but then I won't eat broccoli.

EssexHebridean

Personally Greying I would be inclined to do nothing until such time as McD's gets mentioned, and then without making any sort of big thing about it say that of course you can go there at some stage. Organise it as a low key "oh look, there's a Mc's, you wanted to try that didn't you, shall we go in?" type of thing, and because no particular song and dance is made about it, and it then won't take the form of a "forbidden thing" which might make it feel illicit and therefore far more enticing, it will very possibly be tried and then ticked off as an experience done and nothing more? I'm sure that someone on here can fill you in about how the process in the actual "restaurant" works these days - I think a lot of a touch screen ordering system now though - so that you're not floundering and uncertain when you go in, too. Having got your food, you can instigate a conversation to review it honestly - and maybe have a think about how certain things could be recreated at home. I seem to recall lovely Mrs Stripes doing  a make-at-home version of one of their breakfast muffin type things many moons ago?

Greying_Pilgrim

EssexHebridean said:

....... I seem to recall lovely Mrs Stripes doing  a make-at-home version of one of their breakfast muffin type things many moons ago?

I think you've remembered absolutely right EH.  

Yes, not doing anything until/if it's mentioned is the way to go.  Hope I wouldn't be too flummoxed with all the touch-screens though - those definitely weren't in there in 2002!  🤣

It's down to my lack of parenting confidence - and a slight nag about whether "my mother never took me to Mccyd's when I was a kid" will be getting worked out on the couch 20 years from now.  We can only do our best at the time though, and with the resources available, eh?  But sometimes I do wonder if LG really is "just not that bovvered" or whether they really don't want to nag their dear auld parents for "stuff".  They are a kind and considerate soul, but surely if they really wanted a burger, they would ask, right?  Even if it was only once or twice, or three times?  I can't recall them specifically mentioning it.  

Greying X