Woman Furious With SIL For Charging Her $49 For Homemade Holiday Meal

Dec 16, 2022 by apost team

Dinners during the holidays can be a point of contention. These festive feasts usually mean some home-cooked meal, perhaps served with a set of fancy flatware, shared between family and friends. Whether you have cousins flying in from another coast or grandparents driving down through icy conditions, the time of year gives reason to gather around the table for an evening of too many calories and plenty of desserts. Some families carve turkeys or hams. Others serve platters overflowing with roast vegetables and seasonal specialties. 

Not every group has a competent enough chef who has mastered the oven or the grill enough to confidently say dinner will be ready in time. Occasionally, groups opt to cater the event if not just meet the whole gang at a nice restaurant rather than deal with all the dirty dishes. It can be a fight to pick which sibling should be the chef and which should be the host. Grandma or Great Aunt? And who gets to bring what? There may even be a battle of wits over whose pie is served first or which recipe is used for the mashed potatoes. Is it worth the argument? 

One Mumsnet, a popular parenting blog, user complained about her sister-in-law's unique handling of her kitchen duties during Christmas 2019. While she may have been thankful not to be behind the stove all evening, the alternative role for guests was quite shocking. Her situation proved that sometimes the path of least resistance is more like the path of empty pockets. 

To explain the situation, OP wrote, "My SIL said she would host Christmas this year as she has a big new house and plenty of room for us all. I asked if I should bring something and she said she would just do a shop and split the cost. She did suggest we bring our own alcohol. I thought it was a little odd, as did my hubby but he reminded me that she was cheap and the food wouldn’t cost that much anyway! Best to just agree with it instead of making a fuss." The situation, while admittedly odd, was not too out of the ordinary as far as crazy relatives go. 

OP continued, explaining how plain and oversimplified the meal was, "Anyway we had Christmas, I took up 5 bottles of wine (only drank one and my hubby didn’t drink any). Left them there when we left. We were given cereal for breakfast and tinned soup for lunch and a basic Christmas dinner. No puddings and just a little cheese for desert." The evening sounded underwhelming but not yet offensive. 

However, what OP detailed next was shocking. She wrote, "We just got the bill... it came to £40 each!" The bill (about $49) didn't match the frill-less meal. OP continued, "I feel really ripped off! I don’t want to upset my husband, but his family are a new level of cheap. If I did that to my brother, he probably wouldn’t speak to me again!"

OP readers shared her outrage. One wrote, "I just think it's really poor etiquette to charge guests. It's not as though a group of friends got together and said let's all have xmas together. They asked you to come." Hopefully, OP finds somewhere else to go next holiday season.

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How do you split the responsibilities when it comes to meals during the holidays? Let us know — and be sure to pass this article on to friends, family, as well as any fellow chefs struggling this season!