Christmas 'lunch'

Christmas lunch when it is at 1pm, if we have it in the evening then it is Christmas dinner, exactly the same meal but if I say dinner then family know it is 7.30 and not 1pm.

Haha, yes VQ it’s a bit like the rules of cricket. Perhaps you should create teatowels with all that on, I would definitely buy one.

Seeing as it's pedants' corner here goes..up until approx 17th century everyone ate dinner at around midday but the idle aristocracy didn't like getting up tooo early preferring to sleep off the excesses of alcohol and the card table so dinner was served later and later during the day whereas us peasants in the north have always been up and toiling at the crack of dawn so needed a meal at midday. Hence dinner means dinner between 12 - 2 to us traditionalist northerners and so Christmas Dinner obvs. Love it whatever its called tho so wishing all gransnetters a lovely Christmas Day

The new trend is 'we are having food' So I asked on FB when did breakfast, dinner and tea change to 'food' no answer!

I was brought up on 'Sunday dinners' eaten about 1.oclock, but in the last few years it changed to 'lunch' was it the pub trade and carveries change it to Sunday Lunch? just a thought. When I worked full time I used to ask my hubby 'what do you fancy for dinner tonight'?

Christmas lunch, dinner whatever!!!!

Ps First time ever I will not be eating Turkey. It has been decided between my lover and me, Roast Lamb with all the trimmings.

Oh, VQ you did make me laugh. I must admit having been brought up "French", the subleties of tea/dinner/lunch flummoxed me for many a year...
We actually have Christmas lunch - light and fishy - the dinner in the evening - takes your choice.
The other thing I find incomprehnsible are the "next Thursday fortnight" type of thing!

Well we have Christmas dinner at about 1-2 pm and a light tea at around 5. I was brought up with breakfast dinner and tea like others. Supper was a hot drink and biscuit before bed. Lunch was a morning break snack at school.
I'm never sure if it was a working class or a northern thing. Certainly when we moved south how we heard people strangely calling their evening for meal dinner!
After I was married and we ate our main meal in the evening I started calling our midday snack lunch and agree that the main meal is
Dinner. But still DH and I often say tea as in tea 's ready! GC get confused when I refer to tea and they are used to calling it dinner or even more strangely, supper!

Some extra words there, sorry! Blooming predictive text alters everything

When I was at school, what we took with us to eat in the playground during the morning break was called lunch,. the main meal that we went home for at midday was dinner and what we ate when we got home in the afternoon was tea. Before going to bed we had supper.

After eating nothing all night, of course, we broke our fast with breakfast.

Our ancestors ate their main meal early because they got up early. They mostly went to bed early too, there were no street lights and no television. Then eating later and later became fashionable but not universal. The unfashionable continued to eat their main meal in the middle of the day and still called it dinner.

Polly We called the midday meal dinner in the deep south. My grandparents were from the Sussex countryside and the back streets of Brighton.

Does it really matter what we call it? Personally I think of it as lunch if I eat it at lunchtime. But I don't care what we call it as long as I can eat it.
My bit of pedantry is that I don't like pedantry!

That's exactly it henetha.
lemongrove happy to sort this out with you behind the Argy Bargy. Just after lunch - that's at 1.00pm of course!!

Although a "dew bit" (Thomas Hardy; Jude or Tess, I think) actually breaks one's night fast, it is not breakfast. One has breakfast later. And if one is a bit of a hobbit one has at least two breakfasts which, obviously, aren't breakfast unless going without food for a couple of hours counts as breaking one's fast.

So far today I've had my dew bit (dates and oatcake), breakfast no.1 (cold sausage in a brioche roll), and breakfast no.2 (yogurt and a couple of digestive biscuits).

I might not have lunch today but I definitely ate a Christmas lunch on Wednesday at the ROSL in Edinburgh. What I ate was nothing like what I think of as a Christmas dinner.

I think I'll start calling all meals 'food' or 'eats'.

*vampirequeen I'll have to take issue with your description of a Cream Tea, no sandwiches are served, that would make it Afternoon Tea. High Tea is a different matter, that always includes hot food.

A Cream Tea consists of 1 or 2 Scones with home made jam & clotted cream, accompanied by a pot of tea (maybe coffee).
Devon, cream first; Cornwall, jam first.

I was brought up with Breakfast, Elevenses, Dinner, 3 o'clock cup of tea, Tea & Supper. I was brought up in Yorkshire.

Almost 30 years ago I moved to Middlesex (Surrey), meals then became Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & maybe Supper.

A lot depends on where you grew up or now live. Work pressures often mean changes in eating habits.

I shall be eating Christmas Dinner with DD & her family at about 1pm on Christmas Day

Old council estate kid here..... it was always breakfast...dinner ( school dinners) and tea about 5-6pm. Older kids who stayed up later got supper 8-9 ish..usually consisting of toast/ crumpets and ovaltine /cocoa! Since becoming adult ( or is it cos I’m no longer council tenant) ...it’s become breakfast , lunch, dinner.Its now that for my kuds, and grandkids came home from school the other day saying they had had their Christmas Lunch. !! So is it just a ‘social movement’ thingy. I think so. But I’m no snob about it and will go along with whatever people call it...as long as they’re cooking!

Christmas dinner is Christmas dinner, irrespective of what time of day we eat it, in my opinion. To me Christmas lunch sounds like the left overs eaten on Boxing Day or the day after!

On all other days of the year when I was a child we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at home, in that order, but my paternal grandparents and most of their generation still ate their main meal in the middle of the day and called it dinner. The meal we ate at school was quite definitely called dinner and was two cooked courses every day.

In the West of Scotland it was anyone's guess what the elder generation called the last meal of the day. Some called it tea, some high tea and a small minority supper.

My parents supplemented this list with morning coffee at about 10 a.m. and afternoon coffee at about 3 p.m. both timed to coincide with Daddy finishing his surgeries and getting ready to go out on his rounds again. (He was a G.P.)
Evening coffee was drunk, without anything edible to accompany it about 9 p.m. A time of day where my father's generation of doctors and vets were wondering whether if they took their outdoor shoes off the phone would immediately ring with some dire emergency.

Dinner = main meal for me, whenever it is.

When I was at primary school we lived on the outskirts of town, my father cycled home from work for dinner at one and I cycled home from school (on my own - those were the days).

By the time I was at secondary school we had moved to the country; I went to school by bus & took sandwiches for lunch, my father still cycled to work most of the time but also took sandwiches, we all had dinner in the evening.

As an adult I've always eaten dinner in the evening because it suits my body clock as much as my lifestyle. On Christmas Day we eat about four o'clock - as did my parents.

I think VampireQueen has got it right!

Legs55....shows again how things are different depending where you live in this country. A cream tea is served on a two or three tier plate stand. There are a variety of posh sandwiches (crustless rectangles with fillings like smoked salmon, prawns, beef and horseradish), at least one cream scone and two or three smaller buns or cakes. I've even had one that included strawberries and cream.

No wonder may friend in South Africa doesn't understand our meals. They change depending where you are in the country .

For me it's straightforward 'Christmas meal' as the time varies from year to year depending on arrival of consumers and the lateness of breakfast and the various excited states of the children. Flexibility works for us.

Christmas Dinner not 'lunch'.
Merry Xmas

Henetha that’s so funny ?you think of it as lunch as you ‘eat it at lunchtime’ I think of it as dinner as I ‘eat it at dinner time’ that’s the whole point of the thread depending on age, class status, or country area we all have a different take on whether lunch or dinner is at 12-1 pm
My maternal grandparents who would have set the guidelines were from Leicester so I m now wondering if it’s a north south divide I came from working class families on both sides who had never heard of ‘lunch ‘
So is it generational, class or county thing or a bit of all three ?

In addition to all the the other names for meals mentioned here, I grew up with main meal at lunch time at weekends and in the evening we had high tea which was something like egg on toast with cakes afterwards. High tea was not usual where I lived in the south but normal with our northern relatives. Some people (I think quite middle class) also call their main evening meal supper, whereas supper to me (and I think most) is a light snack late evening.

Totally agree with you. It’s Christmas dinner. No you’re not being opinionated.

I am out to lunch for tomorrow
What will I be eating?
Christmas dinner

Think I remember a similar discussion last year

Oh, we are getting tetchy. Must be the Christmas spirit. just eat and enjoy whatever time of day, and whatever it is called.

Always dinner as main meal in the evening but somehow still refer to Christmas dinner which we eat at lunchtime or thereabouts.