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A gran has left the internet divided over her decision to charge her family for their Christmas dinner...
Let's be honest; the cost of living is biting, and we're all looking for ways to keep costs down. We think that Caroline Duddridge, 63, could be forgiven for her decision to charge her children and grandchildren for their meals when she cooks for them on Christmas Day.
She has charged her two sons £15 per head, her three daughters £10, her four grandchildren £5 per head, and her two three-year-old grandchildren £2.50 per head, leading to her being branded a 'Scrooge' and 'cheapskate' online by some, but many have jumped to her defence. Her sons pay more as her daughters have more parenting commitments and are unable to work full time, and she ensures that smaller children who will eat less, pay less.
Caroline shared that around £90 of her final total spend goes on meat - which she doesn’t actually eat herself! With the cost of turkeys eyewatering this year thanks to a combination of inflation and avian flu, not to mention the cost of gas and electricity to cook a large dinner, should she really be expected to cover all of the costs herself, especially with her background situation? She went on to share more with WalesOnline;
"It sounds, on the face of it, like “oh my god, how could she do that?” But it started when my husband died just before Christmas 2015. My income was halved and I lost my job, so I said to my kids that they’d have to contribute to all the food."
What do our community think?
We asked the parents in our online community to vote on this; fair or not? The verdict was...
99% of our voters feel that Caroline is being more than fair in her request for her family to financially contribute towards the Christmas dinner!
Lots of our parents added that they'd always offer to bring something towards the dinner at the very least, if financial help was refused. We also had some comments where other families have the same financial arrangement, so it's not actually that unusual.
Our verdict...
To us, this is a perfectly reasonable request, and nothing really that different to other types of arrangements families make when eating Christmas dinner together; some families ask each household to bring a contribution - one brings the mash, one brings the pigs in blankets, etc. Usually, it's social etiquette to feed guests you've invited over without expecting anything, but Christmas is definitely a different kettle of fish when you consider the volume of food eaten and the costs of traditional Christmas fare too.
Poor Gran shouldn't be expected to cover all of the costs, and we actually think that she shouldn't even need to ask - we'd be graciously offering a financial contribution the second that Christmas dinner is even mentioned!
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