Would you charge your family for a place at Christmas Dinner??

 

I recently read an article about families who were struggling to make ends meet charging their loved ones for dinner.

Hosting Christmas lunch for friends and family can be expensive, so could charging them for the meal be a way to cope?

This time of year is pretty pricy for most people. There are presents to buy, Christmas outings and parties to shell out for and on top of that there’s the traditional yuletide lunch.

The cost of festive nibbles, fancy side dishes, the turkey, cake, pudding and alcohol all add up, especially if you’re hosting extended family and friends, as well as your immediate family.

And that’s before you account for the stress and extra work involved in cooking such a large meal.

Could charging guests for their meal be one way to cope?

As a family my sister always provides the venue as she has a lovely big modern kitchen with room for about 12 of us, Lynn and her husband Dave do a lovley roast better than any restaurant we have previously tried along with either a home made soup or Prawn Cocktail, I provide the desserts for us, shop bought usually M&S as Im no Mary Berry!  Mum & Dad buy the Turkey so from a cost point of view we all chip in, we also take our own booze along. Its Lynn & Dave who do all the hard work. We find it works well for us as all live within a few hundred metres of each other.

The article I read had a set fee of £40 a head with a reduction  for the kids, not sure who this would go down with some people? Do you think this sounds rather mean?

I think our approach has a different connotation to “charging” but we dont want to overburden the hosts.

Would love to know your feelings on the very emotive subject and also what arrangements you and your families have at this festive time of year.