Last year's 'no food in this house' solution

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At least once while we are visiting, MIL serves cheese, crackers (she doesn’t eat the crackers though) and cut up pears along with white wine for dinner.

That sounds amazing, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Awesome! We've done poptarts, granola bars and snack mix and kept it in our room for DH and the kids. Milk is the hardest because my kids just about go through a 1/2 gallon a day. Inlaws don't have room in their fridge and will buy 1/2 gallon for the week.

Buy the horizon boxes if your kids will drink warm milk. It’ll actually stay cool in the car this time of year. I think they are 12 to a case. This is how my XH and I got milk into our oldest when staying with his parents in their kosher home. We took a walk after meat meals and DD sucked down a boxed milk. Everyone was satisfied.

[Anonymous]

Depending on where you live/visit and how picky you are, you might find non-fast food ethnic restaurants open on both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not just Chinese either. I’ve eaten West African food on Thanksgiving and Afghan on Christmas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least once while we are visiting, MIL serves cheese, crackers (she doesn’t eat the crackers though) and cut up pears along with white wine for dinner.

That sounds amazing, actually.

Regular dinner for me, but not something I would serve for dinner.

[Anonymous]

Team OP here. I’m glad you found yourself a creative solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least once while we are visiting, MIL serves cheese, crackers (she doesn’t eat the crackers though) and cut up pears along with white wine for dinner.

That sounds amazing, actually.

I would eat this when I made dinner for just myself, but would never serve this to guests. Mayyyyybe if you added a big salad or a vegetable tray, but you cannot remotely expect people to make a full meal of this unless it was a light 6/7 p.m. dinner following, say, the full Thanksgiving spread at 2 p.m.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least once while we are visiting, MIL serves cheese, crackers (she doesn’t eat the crackers though) and cut up pears along with white wine for dinner.

That sounds amazing, actually.

I would eat this when I made dinner for just myself, but would never serve this to guests. Mayyyyybe if you added a big salad or a vegetable tray, but you cannot remotely expect people to make a full meal of this unless it was a light 6/7 p.m. dinner following, say, the full Thanksgiving spread at 2 p.m.

Kids are not gonna be happy with some brie, stinky cheese and pear slices. Nor is my DH. He will wondering where his nightly meat course is. For ladies over 35, it is the perfect dinner to nibble or even ignore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At least once while we are visiting, MIL serves cheese, crackers (she doesn’t eat the crackers though) and cut up pears along with white wine for dinner.

Just tell her that the diary is worse then gluten

[Anonymous]

Why are you all putting up with this? It is not "my house my rules" rule because people have specific dietary
needs and everyone has different eating habits, needs, sugar issues etc. Why don't they add a little fridge
to the garage and let guests bring their junk and keep it there? Otherwise, Cooler, and ice. Shop at the
local store, keep it on the ice. End of story. This is some kind of food horror. I can not imagine
any adult putting up with this kind of abuse. Why? Are your families so horrible you can not talk to
them straight and yet you go to visit them and pretend to be all kissy kissy? OMG. Grow up.
If not that, then excuse yourself every few hours and say, we need to go to the X and grab
few bits. If they say something you say "your house, your rules" "my life my rules".
And just walk and feed yourself and the family between the meals.

[Anonymous]

Last resort, just tell your hosts that you have developed hypoglycemia and you need to eat more frequently or
they will have medical situation at hand.

[Anonymous]

We show up with 4 grocery bags full for a weekend and help ourselves whenever we want. We are totally unapologetic. I also bring frozen cookie dough to distract them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are you all putting up with this? It is not "my house my rules" rule because people have specific dietary
needs and everyone has different eating habits, needs, sugar issues etc. Why don't they add a little fridge
to the garage and let guests bring their junk and keep it there? Otherwise, Cooler, and ice. Shop at the
local store, keep it on the ice. End of story. This is some kind of food horror. I can not imagine
any adult putting up with this kind of abuse. Why? Are your families so horrible you can not talk to
them straight and yet you go to visit them and pretend to be all kissy kissy? OMG. Grow up.
If not that, then excuse yourself every few hours and say, we need to go to the X and grab
few bits. If they say something you say "your house, your rules" "my life my rules".
And just walk and feed yourself and the family between the meals.

LOL, I'm not putting up with it, darling. I'm bringing food. When we want and need to, we go out for meals, despite some grumbling and protests. We've stayed in hotels a few times, amid LOTS of protests. We do what we need to do.

Thing is, I found a...well, rather elegant solution where everyone wins. I get fed, MIL/FIL don't feel weird about this particular instance of food, so there's no commentary. I think this is a better solution than my kids not seeing their grandparents.

Yes, my ILs have food issues. They are weird about food. But overall, they are kind and well-meaning. This is not a mortal flaw that they had.

Some of us (not you, apparently) are good at thinking things through and engineering life a little to suit our lives and desired outcomes.

[Anonymous]

OP, I am late to this conversation and maybe missed it last year.

Just wondering, what was your inlaws reaction (or what would it have been) if you just drove to the store and bought some cheese, crackers, fruit and sausages to keep on hand for people?

Why is it OK that this was a gift but not for you to just get for yourselves?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least once while we are visiting, MIL serves cheese, crackers (she doesn’t eat the crackers though) and cut up pears along with white wine for dinner.

That sounds amazing, actually.

I would eat this when I made dinner for just myself, but would never serve this to guests. Mayyyyybe if you added a big salad or a vegetable tray, but you cannot remotely expect people to make a full meal of this unless it was a light 6/7 p.m. dinner following, say, the full Thanksgiving spread at 2 p.m.

Kids are not gonna be happy with some brie, stinky cheese and pear slices. Nor is my DH. He will wondering where his nightly meat course is. For ladies over 35, it is the perfect dinner to nibble or even ignore.

My parents (who are 69) did this for CHRISTMAS DINNER. And then my family (DH, me, and the kids) went out for Thai food. And basically, I no longer plan to visit them for Christmas. They are welcome to come to my house, which won’t happen. But man, you can’t “host” Christmas dinner and put out snacks. I don’t give a hoot whether the pears were from Harry and David.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am late to this conversation and maybe missed it last year.

Just wondering, what was your inlaws reaction (or what would it have been) if you just drove to the store and bought some cheese, crackers, fruit and sausages to keep on hand for people?

Why is it OK that this was a gift but not for you to just get for yourselves?

In years past, when we have gone out to get groceries/go to a restaurant/get take-out, they keep talking and grumbling about it. "You had a HUGE breakfast; how can you want dinner?!" (Uh, because we didn't gorge ourselves just because there was a lot of food. We ate a normal amount of food and now want to eat again, several hours later.) So it's never that we wouldn't get food and take care of ourselves, it was that there was so much commentary.

I think with the "basket that I won," it's that there was this nice windfall of food, and it couldn't possibly go to waste...the idea of it going to waste or not taking advantage of a windfall maybe trumped the disturbing fact that we needed to eat again. Or something.

Oh well! Now "it's tradition" and Cheerful Dumb DIL will arrive tomorrow with her wares!