I have actually been through this before. This is what we did:
Posted By: They said what on 2008-12-06
In Reply to: What to do about the relative who - sm - mlk
It was actually my in-laws.
These people were always at my house. They had their own food, but anytime we had family or even something they liked, they would invite themselves for dinner.
My DH smoked a turkey for TG and I baked a ton of goodies plus the sides. One of the other relatives brought in about a third of the stuff we cooked that day.
The in-laws brought nothing, went in and ate, then told me to "bag up all the leftovers."
I was livid. Told my DH and the other family member what they said. DH, in front of God and everyone, made announcement: "if you did not bring anything, help cook, help clean up---NO LEFTOVERS!" Stated it was not fair to people who spent so much time/money on dinner.
That was the last time they tried to pull that.
If you do not feel like being quite that "assertive" (gross understatement) simply tell them that you are sorry, but that you need the leftovers to feed your family because you spent too much of your grocery budget on dinner, SINCE NO ONE ELSE BROUGHT DINNER. LOL.
I know it sounds rude, may be a white lie of sorts, but maybe they will hear what you had to say, realize that pies don't constitute a great contribution and maybe next year they will bring more.
Now if they are financially burdened, and cannot obviously afford the big dinner, maybe they are asking for the food because they don't have any. Usually I find that is not the case.
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