Christmas dinner made from a box...

I understand where you are coming from. It is a hard place to be. I love to cook from scratch and can't imagine having a boxed holiday dinner. However, I would bring a healthy dish any way. Bring a salad or a good veggie and maybe eat before you go. When you get home or before you go talk an extra walk or something. Try and enjoy yourself anyway and remember the reason for the season and have a Merry Christmas!

I'm thankful my family knows how to cook from scratch and always has regardless of our roots or how poor we once were. That's a common subject at the dinner table - how good so and so could cook and how they never used recipes. There's a certain pride in that.

I mean, seriously snarky answer but if a family member in my family invited everyone over for dinner from a box they probably wouldn't be hosting any more dinners after that. They'd have the rest of the family offering to go home and grab a peck of potatoes and carton of milk to make potatoes or something "cuz they taste better." Most dinners end up being an outpouring of items harvested in everyone's gardens and the bragging rights as to who made the best pickle mix or sauerkraut or what have you. My family is, judging by a lot of these responses about being thankful, apparently very pretentious about cooking... It's also not unusual for a family member to ask others to bring dishes if they are not confident in making them. For example, my mom despises making pies, but my grandmothers make amazing pies. So she recruits their help, lol.

Make good food or get shamed into learning how to. Otherwise, have someone else host the family dinner. Welcome to my family

Bring a side dish or two...that's what I do.

This!

Put things in perspective.
Be thankkful you have family to spend Chistmas with.
When people offer you their hospitality don't judge.
Eat a little bit of everything and you'll probably be able to keep in caloric budget
[/quoteThat's what I would do! Have a wonderful holiday.

Eat a little bit of everything you can stand and then eat when you get home. I would also bring a veggie tray for everyone to snack on while dinner is cooking. If they don't eat, more leftovers for you!

If you don't like it, don't eat it.

I'm sorry I got over that whole, "just to be polite" thing. If I dont' like something, I will not eat it, case closed.
I enjoy the company of the people around me and that's it. I don't say anything and I'm good and staying busy enough and talking enough that its not noticable but I refuse to eat food I don't want to eat and don't like.

^^ I agree. why eat to "just be polite"... if you don't want it, don't eat it. it's not fair to you after you've worked so hard to have a possible moment of weakness and start down a path of overeating. everyone is saying it's just one day, just one meal, etc but usually (at least for me) one meal can start a whole week of bad eating. so of course you are going to be polite and hospitable, i wouldn't think you would be rude to them. but you do have a right to eat or not eat whatever you want.

What's polite varies from family to family, culture to culture. My husband and I went to India for a few weeks and was hosted by families who piled onto our plates ginormous quantities of food. It was a sign of graciousness on their part to feed us *so* much food, to leave us with tremendously full bellies. It's also very rude there not to eat every morsel served to you. We were in pain, nightly. But it was both temporary and well worth it.

Not saying you should eat every morsel--luckily that doesn't seem to be the norm here!

Bring a side dish or two...that's what I do.

I offered and they said they "dont really need anything" ..... O.O

At thanksgiving I ate only turkey and veggies and went to my moms for dessert but I ended up almost having a whole thanksgiving dinner when I got there... I wanted real food, haha. I only went over 100cals for the day, so it wasn't bad but meh.

I understand everyone has their traditions, everyone has their own way of doing holiday dinners but I was really hoping they would step it up a little... They talk about health all the time but they never look at their food choices. They're not fat but the food they eat is crap...

People who aren't into eating well don't want to be lectured, just like you would not want to be lectured about whatever your bad habits are. If you're going to their house, eat in moderation and just enjoy it.

Now who's lecturing? SHE is a member of this site not her in laws. We're supposed to be supporting HER, sheesh! :noway:

I think the dinner sounds great. Exactly what I'd make and I am healthy. All in moderation!

Bring a side dish or two...that's what I do.

I offered and they said they "dont really need anything" ..... O.O

At thanksgiving I ate only turkey and veggies and went to my moms for dessert but I ended up almost having a whole thanksgiving dinner when I got there... I wanted real food, haha. I only went over 100cals for the day, so it wasn't bad but meh.

I understand everyone has their traditions, everyone has their own way of doing holiday dinners but I was really hoping they would step it up a little... They talk about health all the time but they never look at their food choices. They're not fat but the food they eat is crap...

People who aren't into eating well don't want to be lectured, just like you would not want to be lectured about whatever your bad habits are. If you're going to their house, eat in moderation and just enjoy it.

Now who's lecturing? SHE is a member of this site not her in laws. We're supposed to be supporting HER, sheesh! :noway:

Lemme get this straight. Me saying that it's rude to go to someone else's house and get upset over THEIR food choices in THEIR home that THEY paid for and THEY prepared is unsupportive? Mmmm kay.

The OP is going to someone else's home for dinner. Portion control and bringing a dish are two great options (already discussed in detail above). Going there and getting upset about what is prepared is not. It's not her home. It's her in-laws home.