Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

[Hofzinser]

I was reading this email from Simon Heffer to Telegraph editorial staff which was reprinted on the Guardian website. Apart from its monumental pomposity, what stuck out to me was this:

The style book also reminds us that our readers tend to eat Christmas lunch, not Christmas dinner; this is not the Daily Star.

I, in common, I'm pretty sure, with the vast majority of the people I know, have always eaten Christmas dinner. Does this mean I'm a frightfully vulgar Daily Star-reading oik, or is Simon Heffer just a fucking cunt?

[Spearmint Rhino]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

Not only have I never met anyone who calls it 'Christmas lunch', if I did hear of such a person I would assume they must be incredibly common, not incredibly posh. Shows how much I know...

[hobbes]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

Christmas Lunch and a late supper, darlings.
And Simon Heffer is a fucking cunt too.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

I agree with most of that Heffer email, though. (Not that I read the Telegraph.)

[Nishlord]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

'Christmas Lunch' = selection box, 8am, whist reading Beano annual.

[Wyatt Earp]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

We have Christmas dinner, but then we actually do eat ours in the evening.

[Bored Of Education]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

Very sensible, WE, so do we. I stopped the idiotic idea of eating the main meal at tea-time for the rest of the year and then forcing a roast dinner down you at lunchtime or even that bizzare 3-4pm time slot

[WOM]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

I have no idea who this cunt is, but I agree with most of that email, too.

Additionally: "he earns in the $70,000 range" and "there are between 50 to 60 hostages".

[hobbes]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

I've just read that article.
Top notch. Bravo the Heff. Methinks you are mistaking correctness for pomposity, Hof.

[Hofzinser]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

I think if anything, hobbes, I'm allowing my previous - and, I might add, well-founded - dislike of Heffer to cloud my judgement on the piece - I admit that I can't fault the majority of the substance.

However, the bit I quoted above annoyed me qute a bit, with the obnoxious suggestion that using a (presumably) more working class term is inherently uncouth, unsophisticated, ignorant, low-brow, or whatever other negative connotations are contained within the Daily Star reference. I mean what else to make of the idea that "Christmas dinner" - a perfectly reasonable and very commonly-used term - is a term for Daily Star readers?

[Jimmy Bignutz]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

It seems to me like if you're going to have a full roast meal, then you should call it Christmas Dinner, and if you want to call it Christmas lunch, then you should just eat a baked potato or a sandwich or something.

Mind you, a roast dinner on Sunday is called Sunday Lunch. If it's at lunchtime like. But I don't think I've heard anyone say "Christmas lunch".

[Lucia Lanigan]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

I have, but only at work when they're emphasising the "leave the office early" aspect to drum up numbers.

[hobbes]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

Ahhh. T'is like Hemingway...

[WOM]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

Anyone ever call it Christmas Tea?

[Nishlord]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

No no no. 'Christmas tea' is a handful of sausage rolls, a sixth of a tin of Quality Street and more alcohol.

[blameless]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

What hof said - Heffer is a prize arsehole, but most of his e-mail is spot on.

[I.Wright]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

I reckon brunch was invented on Christmas day. After being hauled out of bed around 6am by the child(ren), you can only manage a light breakfast. Come 9am anything goes food-wise (usually a fry-up),washed down with the days first visit to the bar.

[Errorist Sympathiser]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

I'm from the Midlands - what is "lunch"?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

Please remember that nouns take adjectives and verbs take adverbs.

Never mind any argument about pomposity, if an editor of a newspaper has to send out a missive like this (to the staff that, at some level, he must have had some hand in hiring to begin with) then he should be handing in his resignation.

This is the equivalent of an airline company boss writing to his pilots to remind them that it's useful if aeroplanes can take off and land safely, so please try better in future.

[Er Liquidatore]

Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch?

Christmas dinner of course, eaten somewhere between three and four in the afternoon, after a few beers in my cousin's local pub.