But no thanks.
A grandma whose controversial Christmas dinner tax went viral last year has revealed she’s upped her prices for 2023.
Caroline Duddridge, 63, from Fairwater in Cardiff, said that her adult relatives had to stump up £15, with her young grandchildren not spared the cost, having to dish out £2.50 each for the pleasure of the family meal. But this year, she has increased the price due to the increase of cost of living and soaring food prices.
Caroline acknowledged the suffering much of the country is facing, describing a weekly food shop as “just horrifying”. It was in 2015 that she got the idea to ask her family members to fork out money for their dinner after the passing of her husband.
Speaking to her family ahead of the meal, she once advised them to send the cash straight to her account so she could “keep track of any stragglers”. Last year, the bill for her two sons was £15 each and her three daughters had to pay £10. The four grandchildren over five years old were made to hand over £5 while the two three year olds coughed up £2.50.
I just wouldn’t attend. Bring a bottle is fine, but if you have to pay for the meal, you might as well go to a restaurant. I certainly wouldn’t charge.
Get’s your name/face in the media if you’re into that sort of self promoting bollocks. Doubly so the following year.
Can you claim a rebate if the sprouts are mushy or the bacon not crispy?
I’d happily pay a tenner not to have to eat with the money grubbing bitch.
How is this even news, apart from the defined price tag? From my experience this kind of thing is totally commonplace amongst families – for example this year my parents are buying the turkey, my sister is bringing deserts and the cheese board; I’m providing everything else (including booze) and doing the cooking. It’s not going to be totally equitable, but everyone is contributing a decent share, and the rest is frankly small change amongst family. The Mirror story seems like clickbait to me.
Yes, pretty much what BIK says. Christmas Dinner used to happen at my mum’s house and then, when she got too old to take it on, my wife and I took over the job. Everyone just chips in a bit and everything is fine. It probably makes a difference that most of my family aren’t too badly off, I can see where gran is coming from if she is struggling to get by, but charging people isn’t really the right approach in my view. As you say, they might as well go to a restaurant, an old workmate takes his family out for a curry on Xmas day.
People chipping in is one thing, but issuing invoices is a whole world of cynicism away from that.
I wonder if there’s a back story? Our family used to take it in turns to do the meal, but if it became expected of me to do it every year, I wouldn’t.
We just get a curry now though…
What a bunch of meanies (to phrase it gently…).
We’ll have eight and a half* for Christmas dinner this year, or nine and a half if one of the mothers-in-law comes (she’s a bank nurse and doesn’t know whether she’ll be offered a shift that day), and although a bottle here and there would be very welcome, I’d never dream of getting all formal on them like this, even though our Tesco click-and-collect was well over £200. Ghastly woman she must be.
Happy Christmas everyone else!
* The half is a three-year-old. Eats less, makes more noise 😉