CHristmas lunch!

It really only matters what you call it when inviting people who need to know if they are getting a roast meal or a cucumber sandwich.

DH is from Yorkshire. I'm a nesh southerner. When we were first married he'd come in from work around 6pm and ask, 'What's for tea?' I'd say something like, 'It was a lovely slice of fruit cake but you weren't here at three o'clock so I ate yours.'

Funny that I'm an absolute stickler for the mid-day meal being called lunch (apart from Christmas Day) but when I feed the dogs at 4pm I shout, 'DINNER TIME'

I'm in the south and growing up we always said breakfast, dinner and tea. On the rare occasions we had supper it was around 9.00 pm and was usually cheese and crackers!! Now I refer to the mid day meal as lunch and evening meal as dinner - not sure when or how that started.

Seems to me Christmas Day is one non-stop eating binge from start to finish. Who cares what it's called? Take a little look at Daphne's thread later about the little girls with the bombs and be glad that we're here to 'celebrate' AND that most of us have food at all. Think on.............

I shall be glad if it is edible........it may well start out being Christmas lunch and end up as dog' dinner.........with my culinary skills.

I've just realised that I didn't have any breakfast this morning as I had things to sort out then ended up on here

So - shall I have brunch? or wait until luncheon/dinner time?

I think this all stems from the nomeclature being a class issue. The working classes had breakfast, dinner (at midday or thereabouts) and tea (in the evening). The middle classes had breakfast, luncheon/lunch, tea (at 4.30p.m.) and supper although children had 'school dinners' and, I believe, Christmas lunch could be referred to as 'Christmas dinner.'

What a kerfuffle just to remain exclusive and excluding.

I have breakfast, lunch, tea and supper and don't care much if that is socially 'wrong'. And at Christmas we have our Christmas 'lunch' in the evening!

Ho ho ho.

i have lunch at 1.00 and tea somewhere around 7.30.
except for christmas day when it's dinner at 1.00 [or whenever all the cooking comes together] and supper when we've got room for it!
my mother always used to have christmas dinner at lunchtime and, stuffed or not, served a high tea at about 6.00 .......... followed by cold turkey supper somewhere around 8.00!!!!
oh, yes, i live in the south!

We have a our Christmas Day lunch/dinner at about 3pm.

Up here supper is the main meal of the day and eaten at teatime!

Yes I m still basically a breakfast/dinner/ tea girl certainly in my head
I do refer differently to people I know who lunch but my natural is dinner at dinner time and I m from East Anglia Maybe it's the working class areas that have dinner and the posh office workers who lunch

I absolutely agree with witzend and no, you are not being niggly! The main meal,of the day is dinner and if this meal on Christmas Day is NOT your main meal, what on earth are you going to serve which will trump (sorry about the word) that??

Yes, definitely regional. I never have dinner in the evening, it's always tea. Lunch for me still has a slightly poncy connotation, even though I don't call it dinner either, cos it's never big enough.

I'm in Wales; there's no word for lunch in Welsh.

Yes it's very much a regional thing isn't it. Southern people have lunch in the middle of the day regardless of the size of the meal. For us Northeners as Hilda says it's breakfast,dinner,tea,supper.
Think also supper has a different connotation in the South. Love these variations in our small island.

Us northern farming types still refer to our meals as, breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper. Even if we were having our Christmas main meal in the evening it would still be tea!

Christmas Day is the only day of the year when we call lunch dinner.

'Ladies what dine'?
Although I'm sure 'Ladies what lunch'
Could feature quite nicely in this section

Does HRH host Christmas lunch at Sandringham?

Lunch ? Luncheon?

Very true, Ana. "tomayto/ tomaahto" = better example

Although I have yet to meet anyone who says 'potahto'!

Sorry if it irritates you Witzend but it does depend on regional and cultural customs. I could never call a meal eaten in daylight "dinner", no matter how big or how grand.

Like the song, " you say potAYto and I say potAAAHto"...*Vive la différence!*

Some people still have their main meal in the middle of the day, as in the 50s/60s.

Just because school dinners are called that doesn't mean it's every child's main meal of the day!

Witzend i am with you and i dont understand why people get their knickers in a twist and magazines print a timetable for the cooking of Bloody Sunday roast with a cracker !