If you would tip a barista, why not your mum? It's time to charge for Christmas dinner

A noble tradition where one person spends the GDP of a small village on ingredients and then cooks for twelve hours straight while everyone else debates whether Die Hard is a Christmas film.

It’s so well documented it’s become a sitcom trope, we know someone always carries the hassle on Christmas day, very often the woman of the house, but we are happy to gaslight ourselves into believing they ‘love to do it’.

New data from thinkmoney has revealed a quarter of Brits believe you should be able to charge guests for Christmas dinner, an emerging trend dubbed the Pay Per Plate Christmas.

Because the big festive secret is we are not always doing it entirely out of love. We are doing it because everyone is terrified of looking like the family that cannot “afford” Christmas. We cling to the performance like tinsel to a jumper.

The Joneses are not just next door; they are in our heads, and they are judging. Except, plot twist, the Joneses do not exist. They are just as skint and stressed as the rest of us, desperately hoping the card machine will flash “approved” when it is their turn at the checkout.

So maybe it is time we got honest with ourselves. If the average Christmas shop now costs roughly the same as a weekend city break, why are we still treating the host like they have won the prize of our company instead of drawing an expensive short straw? In any other setting, this much labour and expense would involve either a payslip or a union rep. Yet on 25 December we call it tradition.

Imagine sitting down to Christmas dinner and seeing a discreet little QR code next to your place setting, like it is a gastropub. “Tip the chef,” it says. Outrageous? Maybe. Helpful? Definitely. In keeping with the times? Without question.

We tap to donate, we tap to tip our taxi drivers for getting us to our destination without ejector seating us from the car, we tap to buy socks we do not need. Why not tap to acknowledge the person who spent the day wrestling with both a turkey and their last nerve?

If we went out for Christmas dinner, we would be looking at paying £60 at our local for boiled veg and would not hesitate to leave a tenner for the serving staff, as they are working on Christmas Day. Well, newsflash, so is your mum.

The only reason charging, chipping in or contributing feels controversial is because talking about money is the last British taboo. We will merrily discuss bowel habits before we admit to sweating over the gas bill, and would rather plunge further into debt than confess we are fearing the January bills as we’re stirring the M&S gravy.

So maybe honesty is the real tradition worth reviving, and fairness is more festive than financial posturing. So yes, I am going to say it; charging for Christmas dinner might actually be an idea we should put on the (festive) table. Not necessarily via an itemised bill, unless you want to detonate a family argument for sport, but through the adult concept of shared responsibility.

If that means money, fine. If it means bringing a course, a bottle, or doing the dishes, also fine. Just stop leaving one poor soul to bankroll the entire thing. Deep down, we all prefer the idea of ‘standing our round’ and paying our share anyway, but we are almost allergic to accepting this from others, and that needs to change.

Because beneath the tinsel, Britain is full of naked emperors pretending to wear designer festive robes. And nothing says “Happy Christmas” quite like finally admitting that sometimes the kindest gift is simply offering to pay for your share of the roast potatoes.

________________

Vix Leyton is a consumer expert at thinkmoney and a stand-up comedian.

LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.

To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk