Christmas 'lunch'

*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

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'.

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!!

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!

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

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.

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

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!

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

I tried to explain UK meals to a friend in South Africa but she didn't understand it. Now I realise we don't all agree either

Breakfast is always the first meal of the day no matter what time it's eaten. Unless the American brunch is adopted which is eaten closer to lunch time but is often a full English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish breakfast

Lunch is in the middle of the day except if that's when the main meal is served which makes it dinner. Lunch is only lunch if it's a light meal.

A cream tea is sandwiches and cakes and is usually eaten between 3pm and 5pm but can be eaten at any time of day so you could have a cream tea at 11am if you want to.

Tea is a light meal eaten around 5pm unless it's the main meal of the day in which case it's dinner for tea.

Supper is a snack before bed.

When you have a roast on a Sunday then it's Sunday dinner which would make lunch dinner unless it's served later as dinner for tea.

If you have a roast mid week then you have a Sunday dinner even though it's not Sunday.

A roast dinner is not a Sunday dinner if it's Christmas day. Then it's Christmas dinner regardless of what time it's served.

Morning coffee could be elevenses and is taken around 11am but you might have a cup of tea instead. This isn't the same as afternoon tea which could be a cup of coffee and taken about 3pm.

There is no really ‘correct’ thing to say, but as Mawbroon comments, Christmas Dinner is a bit like Wedding Breakfast, ie. a special meal that traditionally is called Christmas Dinner.
And I will see you in the back yard of The Argy Jane10 and we can settle this in the time honoured way
( who can drink the most Baileys without falling over.)

Christmas Day is the only day of the year when we refer to lunch as dinner.

Breakfast dinner tea and supper is a cup of tea and toast before bed what's the problem sorted

Lunch in the middle of the day, dinner in the evening for me, whatever the meal consists of.
Breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner, supper though that would be too much eating for most people, oops, forgot elevenses!

I've never thought about what the main Christmas meal is called but dinner has always been in the evening for me except at school.
I thought people who call the mid day meal dinner were those whose father/husband came home on their break for a main meal(I call it lunchtime - what do you call it if dinner is middday?) I grew up in London and men worked too far away to come home so dinner/main meal was in the evening.

I don't mean horses doovers at 8 do I- I mean petits fours- must be this cold making me potty.

I would think that the high cost of eating out on Christmas day might be partly due to how much extra the staff will need to be paid.

Whhhooo £75 a head can any food be worth that price I ve just had a lovely two course Christmas dinner with friends for £12 75 and that came with a card a small box of chocs and a cracker
Each to his own but I can’t pay into this inflated greed, I feel for you lynnbo as you didn’t really want to pay that price but had to go along with it but honestly what a waste of money
People will pay this sort of silly money for a big meal then pay to lose weight after Christmas
Mad sad world

Following a majority (I was the minority!) family vote, our party of 12 is having our Christmas Day meal at the local 'pub' this year - at £75 a head it should be a 'Christmas Banquet' even though it's at lunchtime!!!

Some things retain their traditional name though, regardless of the time of day, like Wedding Breakfast - eyebrows would be raised if you brought out the Coco Pops or toast and marmalade.

Dinner.

Our family has always had breakfast, dinner and tea. Even when, during the week, the main meal was in the evening as they took sandwiches for midday. My DH is from a better class (they thought) and had breakfast, lunch and tea. With the main meal at one o'clock prompt.

We've now settled on dinner being the main meal and a moveable feast. So sometimes we have breakfast, dinner and tea and sometimes breakfast, lunch and dinner. So Christmas dinner is Dinner!