For context, every year I buy the turkey for £130, dry brine it for two days, cook it, take it to my mum’s house, and then prepare all the trimmings while I’m there. This involves many hours of work, as you can imagine, and requires me to wake up at 7 AM to get all the timings right.
The problem is that my partner and I barely get any time together on Christmas Day. We’d like to wake up, have a coffee, spend time together, open presents, maybe have a light breakfast, and then start cooking dinner at midday.
We don’t usually eat breakfast or lunch as we intermittent fast. so, we are never hungry for a giant plate of roasted food at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. It effectively ruins the Christmas meal for us anyway.
When younger children were involved and people needed to get home early, I compromised—even though I never fully understood the midday meal tradition. But this year, the youngest child attending is 12, so I suggested meeting in the middle and having dinner at 3 PM.
I have been told that I am selfish and that I don’t compromise, which I find ridiculous. So, I have decided that my partner and I will visit the family in the afternoon but skip the dinner. We’ll have our own meal at home in the evening, saving money and allowing us to have the Christmas morning we have missed since moving in together in 2018.
Additionally, I will finally get the chance to experiment with flavors sous vide a turkey crown, use the giblets for gravy and try new recipes.
It’s worth noting that everyone usually rushes off as soon as they have finished eating anyway. There are usually eight people in attendance, including us and except for my mum and brother, everyone else leaves right after the meal. It wouldn’t feel so bad if we spent the day together after eating.
NTA. It doesn’t sound like your family knows what the word compromise means.
The irony for them when it comes to “compromise” is that they’d rather not have us there than have it a couple hours later. We are supposed to compromise but they are not.
Yeah. OP’s their personal chef, who pays for all of the expensive food, does all of the work and can then be ignored by everyone after he is been sufficiently taken advantage of. OP isn’t family; OP is the help.