At Christmas, The Kitchen Becomes The Real Holiday HQ (and You'll Never Guess What We Really Do There)

The new OpinionWay study carried out for Cuisines AvivA will however reshuffle the cards since in 2025, the real nerve center of the holidays is no longer the living room, but the kitchen. This everyday place, rarely featured in end-of-year stories, suddenly becomes a refuge, a clandestine bar, a decompression chamber… and sometimes much more.

The numbers speak for themselves

One in two French people admit to taking refuge in the kitchen under the pretext of watching the oven, a convenient alibi to escape endless political debates or uncle’s digressions on the famous “it was better before”. Among those under 25, the practice is truly a national sport because 7 out of 10 young people have perfectly mastered the art of tactical escape behind a swing door.

And once sheltered, tongues loosen. Nearly half of French people debrief there the enormities heard at the table, while 38% isolate themselves there simply to avoid a guest who is too heavy. For many, the kitchen is no longer a place to prepare meals, but a perfectly assumed buffer zone. A space where we breathe, where we exile ourselves, where we finally breathe.

The study even reveals a more unexpected use: the kitchen becomes an improvised break room! 56% isolate themselves there to escape the family noise, 19% discreetly take a quick shot there and 14% take a micro-nap between two courses. A much more authentic vision of the average New Year’s Eve.

The subjects that scare you away?

Unsurprisingly, political debates that get out of hand (66%), conspiracy theories (41%) and remarks on the physical (37%). Among young people, another taboo is added, intrusive questions about their love or sexual life, which more than one in two prefer to avoid by going off to peel chestnuts.

But it is among 18-24 year olds that cooking takes on its most unexpected dimension. What their elders consider as a break becomes, for them, a real space for additional activities. Nearly 4 out of 10 young people share an intimate moment with their partner, as many allow themselves a sneaky Tinder session between the turkey and the log, and some go so far as to show their matches to the family. 38% open a gift deemed too daring to stay under the tree, and 30% even send a nude out of sight. At this stage, we are closer to the coworking of individual freedom than to the room where we cut the frozen log.

Another unexpected function is fact-checking. When a discussion gets heated, 19% of French people rush to the kitchen to check on ChatGPT if their own statements really hold water. Among young people, 32% even self-correct on the fly!

Finally, when returning to the table becomes mission impossible, some opt for open dissidence, 35% organize a confident counter-party in the kitchen. Among young people, the proportion rises to 7 out of 10, proof that the real after-party is not played in the living room, but between the sink and the dishwasher. And while we’re at it, we might as well refill the champagne discreetly (34%, and up to 63% among young people) or quietly finish the gratin (58%).

For Cuisines AvivA, this study validates an already well-established intuition that the kitchen is no longer just a technical place, but a living space in its own right, designed to accommodate all the realities of everyday life, even the most unexpected. Retreat corner, break room, confidence space, flirting zone, improvised fact-checking place… the uses go far beyond the simple preparation of the turkey.