So, the Christmas arguments have already begun in the Poojah residence this evening and we’re still three sleeps away from the big day. After last year’s Christmas Eve Ocado substitution shít show, we decided to run the Omicron gauntlet and go out and shop in an actual, real life supermarket - something we haven’t really done since about, ooh, March last year I reckon.
It was all going swimmingly - the place was fairly quiet for the time of year under the circumstances, and we’d managed to tick off most of the items we were looking for as we passed through the frozen aisle, I presumed, to make our way to the checkout and pay for our gluttonous trolley of food, about half of which will never be eaten, the shameful, wasteful western bástards that we are.
But no, the wife stops, opens one of the freezer doors, and pulls out a large bag of frozen mushy peas. So I’m all like “What the fúck are you doing!?”, and she’s all like “Grabbing a bag of frozen mushy peas”, and so I’m all like “I can see that very well my love, but just why the fúck are you doing it, you animal!?”, so she’s all like “For the fúcking Christmas dinner, you dickhead” (she has a potty mouth that I don’t like, and I don’t know where she gets it).
So anyway, that’s when the fun starts. As it happens, we’re hosting the whole set of in-laws this Christmas - about 10 of them here for four or five days. And her dad, apparently, specifically requested that we have mushy peas with our dinner as it’s a tradition that goes way back in their family, all the way to about 1964, or something. Now I’ve had Christmas dinner at her mum and dad’s house many times over the years, and though I’ve noticed mushy peas as an option on the slightly weird buffet service that was always on offer, I’ve never given it much more thought than “that’s a bit weird”. But in laws are weird right? That’s the norm, her mum cooks Spaghetti Bolognese with baked beans in it ffs.
Tradition schmadition, was my take. I was brought up a working class lad, I often used to open my lunch box at school to find a slightly stale ‘sandwich’ which was nothing more than two pieces of lightly buttered bread, because my mum couldn’t always afford the filling. That was tradition by circumstance, but it doesn’t mean I’d necessarily want to eat that meal again for nostalgia’s sake.
So my, potentially arrogant take on proceedings, is that if we’re hosting Christmas, in our house, which we paid for, to eat food which we also paid for, then we ain’t having the menu dictated to us (just as I never dictated it when I went to theirs back in the day). If, through years of hard work, financial planning and sacrifice, we don’t have to eat shít food, then let’s not. Yet she thinks I’m being a príck.
Normally, I like to think I’m pretty good in terms of self awareness and objectivity. If we’ve had an argument, and then it dawns on me that it was probably me being the douchebag then I do generally own up and apologise.
But I just can’t wrap my head around this one. Mushy peas with your Christmas dinner is the work of the devil, isn’t it? Or have I got this horribly wrong somehow?
NSC, back me up or put me firmly in my place…
It was all going swimmingly - the place was fairly quiet for the time of year under the circumstances, and we’d managed to tick off most of the items we were looking for as we passed through the frozen aisle, I presumed, to make our way to the checkout and pay for our gluttonous trolley of food, about half of which will never be eaten, the shameful, wasteful western bástards that we are.
But no, the wife stops, opens one of the freezer doors, and pulls out a large bag of frozen mushy peas. So I’m all like “What the fúck are you doing!?”, and she’s all like “Grabbing a bag of frozen mushy peas”, and so I’m all like “I can see that very well my love, but just why the fúck are you doing it, you animal!?”, so she’s all like “For the fúcking Christmas dinner, you dickhead” (she has a potty mouth that I don’t like, and I don’t know where she gets it).
So anyway, that’s when the fun starts. As it happens, we’re hosting the whole set of in-laws this Christmas - about 10 of them here for four or five days. And her dad, apparently, specifically requested that we have mushy peas with our dinner as it’s a tradition that goes way back in their family, all the way to about 1964, or something. Now I’ve had Christmas dinner at her mum and dad’s house many times over the years, and though I’ve noticed mushy peas as an option on the slightly weird buffet service that was always on offer, I’ve never given it much more thought than “that’s a bit weird”. But in laws are weird right? That’s the norm, her mum cooks Spaghetti Bolognese with baked beans in it ffs.
Tradition schmadition, was my take. I was brought up a working class lad, I often used to open my lunch box at school to find a slightly stale ‘sandwich’ which was nothing more than two pieces of lightly buttered bread, because my mum couldn’t always afford the filling. That was tradition by circumstance, but it doesn’t mean I’d necessarily want to eat that meal again for nostalgia’s sake.
So my, potentially arrogant take on proceedings, is that if we’re hosting Christmas, in our house, which we paid for, to eat food which we also paid for, then we ain’t having the menu dictated to us (just as I never dictated it when I went to theirs back in the day). If, through years of hard work, financial planning and sacrifice, we don’t have to eat shít food, then let’s not. Yet she thinks I’m being a príck.
Normally, I like to think I’m pretty good in terms of self awareness and objectivity. If we’ve had an argument, and then it dawns on me that it was probably me being the douchebag then I do generally own up and apologise.
But I just can’t wrap my head around this one. Mushy peas with your Christmas dinner is the work of the devil, isn’t it? Or have I got this horribly wrong somehow?
NSC, back me up or put me firmly in my place…
and to the VERY IDEA of getting frozen vegetables.
