^We go to a 10 pm mass now, but when the kids were small we went on Christmas day or earlier on Christmas eve. It’s too much to expect children to hold up for that long.
^^That was my first reaction: why on earth are these people taking little children to a Midnight Mass?
You mean it’s not required? The parents had a choice?
I never realized that. I thought it was some sort of religious requirement. (Obviously, I’m not Catholic.)
The parents must have been nuts, but I didn’t know that at the time.
Some people would traditionally go to Midnight Mass and I guess you want to be there when the day changes to the 25th if the assumption is that that is the special holy time. And then, they would come home and have a big meal (Reveillon)! Makes for an interesting, hung over feel for Christmas Day I would think.
I was raised Catholic and only went to Midnight Mass once.
I was raised Catholic and always wanted to attend Midnight Mass because we were never allowed to stay up that late! No, we had to go on Christmas morning after opening gifts 
Do any of you have grandchildren (or young nieces/nephews/other children who aren’t your own) at holiday dinners or other family events where food is served?
Do you take the children’s preferences into account when planning the menu? Do the children’s parents set the food rules for their kids at your table (like whether they must eat a certain amount of the main course to be allowed to have dessert)? Or are you involved in the rule-setting because it’s your house?
I have young nephews. It’s a constant battle with their mom and negotiating x amount of bites for dessert. But she’s a big believer in negotiating behavior with young children. At a holiday with the crowds and excitement I wouldn’t expect kids to each much.
I stay out of it.
I remember being at the “kid’s table” with my cousins. There is so much food that there is bound to be something for everyone. The adults are having a great time without us and the usual rules about trying things and finishing up are definitely relaxed. We all longed to grow up and join the big table one day but it was really a good separation for those holiday gatherings. Only babies were exempt, and they were usually asleep.
God, I love having a small family where these issues don’t occur. But to Marian’s Q - “Do the children’s parents set the food rules for their kids at your table (like whether they must eat a certain amount of the main course to be allowed to have dessert)? Or are you involved in the rule-setting because it’s your house?” - I would imagine that it’s not my place to override the parents.
But no one is such a jerk that the kid couldn’t enjoy Christmas cookies if he didn’t eat all his veggies.
Well, there might be some instances where you could. For example, if you care about your carpeting, you might have a rule at your house that food can only be eaten at the table. But the children’s parents, whose carpeting consists mostly of a deep layer of crushed crayons and dried-out Play-Doh, might not have a rule like that at home.
I don’t know whether parents in this instance would object to telling their kids, “At Aunt Pizzagirl’s house, there’s a rule that we can only eat at the table.”
Since I may be the pickiest eater in our family, I am sympathetic. We make sure there’s at least one protein and one veg that each person likes along with other side dishes. Everyone enjoys ham, so I always buy a spiral sliced honey ham for every holiday. Usually, one other protein is enough but we sometimes have two. Dh is happiest if there are five or six vegetable choices, especially now that he limits carbs as part of his T2D control and no longer eats potatoes, rice, pasta or bread.
Our kids were required to try one bite of any new food before rejecting it, but we did not enforce that at holidays or celebrations. @Pizzagirl, my mother was, I’m sorry to say, a jerk. She would get very pushy about cajoling or tricking my kids into eating something they didn’t want and I had to put my foot down many times before they had a meltdown.
I’d never say anything to a guest, child or adult, about what they did or did not eat. My only concern would be whether there was nothing provided that a guest could, or would, eat. Until I learned that she’d eat mac n’ cheese, I made my then-18 yr. old niece a PBJ sandwich several times when she stayed with us because she only ate about six foods.
@Marian, there is nothing worse, IMHO, than a parent who insists on negotiating with their children at length about food at a table with other people. No one wants to hear it! No one wants to hear the whining!! Some people need to get over themselves. One unbalanced meal is not going to ruin your child’s health.
A friend with whom I used to share holiday meals would conduct her table manners lessons for her children the minute we sat down to Christmas dinner. Loudly. I’m not talking a sotto voce “take your elbows off the table/chew with your mouth closed/put your napkin in your lap.” I’m talking about a lengthy lesson in how to properly serve oneself bread and butter: complete with narrated demonstration. No other conversation could begin. She never did this at more casual meals. It was as annoying as hell.
My feeling is: do it at home first. Then your children will be trained for public events.
I think that it is perfectly reasonable to require that children eat their food at the table in your house, no matter how they are allowed to rampage around at home. I can’t imagine a parent being such a boor that they would not support you in this. (Well, actually, I can, but the less said the better about them! 
)
I think the host has the right to say where food will be eaten, but not what food will be eaten.
My mother was prone to making lots of comments about what her grandchildren (my daughters, my brother’s daughters, my sister’s son) should and shouldn’t eat. My brother and I mostly discouraged or ignored her comments and allowed our children to choose what to eat from the available foods on the table. My sister did not discourage or ignore the comments. All the grandchildren are now adults. My daughters are no longer picky eaters. My nieces are still, kind of. My nephew is not a picky eater but is the only one with a weight problem.
Of course it’s reasonable. I can’t imagine why Marian could possibly think otherwise or suggest that parents should “object” to a house rule that food is eaten at the table. i find those equivalent to house rules that shoes don’t belong on the sofa, or that the family dog doesn’t get fed from the table, or that smokers have to smoke in the garage.
I thought Marian was going to talk about FOOD behaviors - like a parent insisting a kid has to take a bite of vegetables before dessert. That’s completely different from a house rule. That’s a parenting style.
I was talking about both, but I can see the distinction you’re making. I just never thought about that distinction before.
Right. In other words, I as the hostess “rule” over my house (no food in the living room, sneakers off the sofa, dog doesn’t beg at table) but the parent “rules” over the child (have to take three bites of your vegetables before you have dessert, have to ask to be excused, etc.). I put “rules” In quotes for lack of a better word.
I am continually surprised by the number of people who don’t actually have rules like “no feet on the furniture” or “meals are to be eaten at the table,” namely, my brother and SIL and virtually all the friends of theirs that I have met. They are lovely people, but my SIL doesn’t get that part of raising civilized kids is having these basic rules in one’s own home. Every time she and their kids are at my mother’s condo, she reminds them that “different houses have different rules,” and while this is true, old people like me would like to believe that not stomping on the couch is a basic rule of civilization, not just some quirky house rule.
My particular pet peeve is dogs being fed from the table. When we sat down to eat, our dogs were told “go to your mat.” They were then released after we were done eating, and they were fed typically after us (out of their dog bowls of course). My dogs never even had the concept of “I can come sniff around a table and someone will feed me something.” Not to suggest they didn’t ever steal unprotected food off a table, but they didn’t bother you when you ate! I also just don’t think it’s good for dogs to have lots of people-food, aside from maybe some cheese to wrap pills in or somesuch.
We had a strict house rule that you were not allowed to touch the art. Problem was, given my ex-husband’s taste, it wasn’t always easy to tell what was art. My favorite was when we were at someone’s house for dinner and someone left a green garbage bag full of trash in a corridor where the kids wanted to play. My then 6-yeat old politely asked the hostess, “Is that art? Or can we touch it?”
I didn’t have those rules, massmom, but I still was taught to respect the rules of other people’s houses. I don’t put my feet on other people’s furniture and I eat wherever everyone else was eating. I have since I was young.
Just because a family doesn’t have the same rules as your family doesn’t mean they’re uncivilized.