'AITA because I hate that my BF's family Christmas dinner schedule?'
"AITA because I hate that my BF's family Christmas dinner schedule?"
So, we're just leaving my BF's parents house after Christmas dinner and I got in a bit of a fight with him because I said I don't want to eat Christmas dinner with his family again next year.
They're all nice enough people and we all got along just fine, but my problem is literally the pace of the meal. We sat down at the table at 2pm and didn't get up until 7pm!!!
There were a bunch of courses and ALOT of time in between each course where I felt trapped and antsy trying to make awkward small talk with everyone at the table. Don't get me wrong, each course was nice food and I complimented his parents on each thing, but each dish felt a little more pretentious than it needed to...
And I was just hungry and wanted to eat a MEAL, not just a bunch of small bites until 3.5 hours into dinner when the beef and potatoes finally came out.
Every family gathering I've ever been to before (my family or friends) has had a pretty typical format: show up at invited time, help hosts get dinner ready, put everything out on the table, and everyone sits down at eats it all at once, or maybe dessert comes a little later.
Then you're free to get up from the table and go outside or go for a walk or move to a couch to continue socializing with specific people, etc. You get your belly satisfied at once and have a lot of opportunities to have conversations with different people there.
At his family meal it was like all of us were just trapped in our chairs for 5 hours making small talk with everyone and the bulk of the conversation stayed really shallow as it does when it's a 12 person convo the whole time.
I found it excruciatingly uncomfortable from both a hunger standpoint and a social standpoint and couldn't wait to escape. He says it's just normal for his family to eat that way and doesn't understand why it made me so antsy.
His grandparents were European so I guess long course dinners are more common there. Also there was a wine pairing with every course, and by the end the drunk uncles were getting kinda loud and sloppy.
When it was all over and we could finally get up from the table I felt like my prison sentence was over and I had my freedom back. I was honest with my bf in the car when we left.
I told him that next year I'd just like to do Christmas dinner with my own family or I can just pretend I'm sick or something if we're still in his family's hometown then. He says I'm being a bitch. I was polite to his family, I only told him privately that I hated it.
I don't know if it's a blood sugar thing or an expectations thing or what... But AITAH for my opinions here and telling my bf my honest thoughts? Anyone else hate long drawn out dinners? What should I do next time?
Let's see what readers thought.
swissmiss6 writes:
Well for starters, its unreasonable to expect every year to be one place. Are you not allowed to go to your own family for Christmas? Thats unacceptable. Secondly, you expressed an honest opinion, and jot even a rude one and his response is "you are a b&ch?" Well he should be an ex cause that is also unacceptable. Third, a FIVE HOUR long meal? No thank you!
vandelay writes:
YTA. Its fine its not your thing but remember that the point of a holiday gathering is spending time with family and not the food . You're basically saying to him that you can't spend 3 hours with his family. If you're hungry then eat a decent lunch at noon so that by the time the big meal comes at 5 it will be fine.
guineapickle writes:
NTA First, why is your bf calling you a b&tch? That's a lot of bullshit. The fact that the expectations of the meal made you uncomfortable should be something he is strategizing to improve. Not calling you names.
Second, if you really want to get along with this family, do what you need to do. If you weren't physically restrained in your chair, get the hell up. Who was serving all of these courses?
Those people weren't trapped in their chairs. So get up. Go help them in the kitchen. Say you're feeling faint and going for a breath of fresh air outside, take bathroom breaks. If you don't see this as a long term thing, by all means, skip it. If bf already feels fine about calling you a bitch, he doesn't deserve you anyway.