Christmas dinner

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OK, we all know what to eat for Thanksgiving…turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberries. So what do you eat for Christmas dinner? We’re having it at our house this year since I have to work 😦 , and I’m trying to come up with a menu so I can start shopping and avoid the last minute rush. What do you all eat for Christmas? :christmastree1:
 
My Christmas dinner replicates your Thanksgiving dinner with the addition of cranberry sorbet, shortbread cookies, mincemeat tarts and fruitcake – and yes, I happen to like fruitcake, the darker the fruitcake the better.

When MIL was still alive, Christmas pudding with hard sauce was ‘de rigueur’ but I haven’t had it since.
 
Ham, cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, relish tray, corn casserole, brocolli, rolls, salad…
 
Roast beef and yorkshire pudding
potatoes, carrots, celery & onions roasted w/the meat in the same pan
salad
apple pie with cheshire cheese
 
puzzleannie said:
Roast beef and yorkshire pudding
potatoes, carrots, celery & onions roasted w/the meat in the same pan
salad
apple pie with cheshire cheese
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It looks like puzzleannie is the closest one. I guess we will having dinner at her house.😃
 
We have so many traditions that we cook them each on one of the 12 days of Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, we have swedish meatballs, potato salad, ham, relish tray, rye and limpa bread, and peporkakor. Why? Not because anybody is Swedish. We have it because my grandmother, not the greatest cook by any stretch and feeling like not cooking one Christmas, found a Swedish deli in her neighborhood and served this. At least 60 years later, it is a still a hit.

Christmas Day we either have a full blown Italian feast that must have ravioli and fried beef with crab legs, or we have a steak dinner. Why? Because my husband simply adores steak, and when we were temporarily empty nesters, it was a wonderful treat. The Italian food is because my husband is half Sicilian, and his nona used to dragoon her sisters and daughters upstairs into her attic and assembly-line produce ravioli for Christmas, on saw horses with boards placed over them.

We will also have Mexican food preferably tamales. My husband’s grandmother was one of the Northern California cannery ladies, and she traded recipes with Mexican canny ladies. I spent a big hunk of my adult life in Texas, and have been to many a tamale making event as well as tamale parties as a part of posadas.
 
We have a pretty identical meal to Thanksgiving, with some slight variation in vegetables. We will also have ham on hand. Our girls just happen to love turkey dinners, as do I. We do a lot of baking, so, in addition to my pies, there will be my grandmother’s recipe sugar cookies (the best!), peanut butter blossoms, chocolate snowflake cookies…

When both the girls and their hubbies are in town, as they will be this year, we go to an early evening Christmas Eve Mass at our longtime parish and then out to our favorite Thai restaurant - one of the few open on Christmas Eve.
 
for Christmas eve, crab cakes and clam chowder with cole slaw and hash browns

for new years eve, kielbasi, kraut, pierogi in onions & butter, mushroom barley soup

new years day, ham, beans, scalloped potatoes, some weird jello fruit coolwhip deal my Sister in Law makes

Sunday between the Holy days, spaghetti with homemade sauce including boiled pork neck bones, meatballs & italian sausage

any time in between we are with friends, tamales, buneolos, pan de polvo, and carbs mexicali style

we picked up a lot of ethnic eats on our travels esp.our sojourn in Cleveland
 
I hate turkey, but everyone else wants it no matter what.

If I could have my dream Christmas it would fajitas or steak (for a crowd, a top loin roast).
 
Staples: ham,ham and more ham. Baked beans, noodles or dumplings made with the broth we froze from the Thanksgiving turkeys. Relish tray, cheese ball (made with Philly cream cheese.

There are about 5 or 6 cooks in the family now, so everyone brings their bestest dessert or casserole they have discovered during the year.

Always mince pie, and my home made fudge.
Everybody gets left overs, so we all know to bring a couple of left over containers.

Yum, yum! Talk about carbs:eek:
 
For Christmas Eve, my mom does “Christmas Pasta”–a homemade pasta sauce recipe she got from Rachael Ray a few years ago, before she hit it big. It’s super-easy and super delicious, with all different kinds of meat (ground beef, turkey, and veal, I think, along with pancetta). So we have an Italian Christmas Eve, with salad, rolls, etc. and Christmas cookies.

Christmas day is always ham (usually Honeybaked) with a cheesy potato casserole, roasted asparagus, bread, etc. We are big chocoholics, so we usually have Oreo ice cream dessert–oreo cookie crust with a mint chocolate chip ice cream filling. Mmmmm!
 
One of the more fun Christmas (and this year Thanksgiving) traditions we’ve developed is to do pot luck, with appetizers and assorted goodies. This year for Thanksgiving we had sweet and sour meatballs, ham, rolls, a couple of different salads, cheese balls, various desserts. Everybody brought something and it ended up being a nice variety.

One year we did homemade pizzas for Christmas. One of my coworkers thought this was so great she’s asked me if we’re doing it again.

Have fun with it, figure out what everyone likes, do what’s easy! Our family’s feeling is that the dinners for days like Thanksgiving and Christmas should be good and tasty as well as not too labor intensive for one family.
 
Christmas Eve @ grandma’s: it’s kind of buffet style, not formal. There is ham, rolls, a big pot of chili, ambrosia salad, lunchmeat, olives, mac n cheese, nacho dip, lots of pie and cookies.

Christmas day: a lot like Thanksgiving
 
If it’s at my house, it’s beef bourguignon. This is the perfect meal for Christmas because it is best when made ahead of time. All you have to do on Christmas is warm it up.
 
1ke said:
I hate turkey, but everyone else wants it no matter what.

If I could have my dream Christmas it would fajitas or steak (for a crowd, a top loin roast).
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Well, come on over, and we’ll fire up the grill.
 
Christmas Eve, ham and potatoes, salad, veggies and lots of cookies!!
Christmas morning, coffee cake while opening gifts

eggs, bacon, toast and bananas in orange juice! My mom started that with my brother and sister when she left her first husband and didn’t have any money for something sweet on Christmas. She sliced bananas, poured a little orange juice over them and sprinkled sugar on top. They loved it and it became a tradition, even with my dad and me. Now my kids love it too. I get out some antique glass dishes to make it look even prettier.

For Christmas dinner, I think I’m going to make a lasagna, with homemade sauce and lots of ricotta cheese. mmm yummy!

and of course…MORE COOKIES
 
those family traditions are the best, especially the ones born of necessity

love the story about the sisters preparing a holiday dinner, and they cut off the short end of the ham before they put it in the oven. their mother asked why on earth did you do that? they said, well mom, you always did it that way!. She said, that was because my roaster was not big enough to hold a whole ham, you have a huge roaster and oven!.

our tradition, it was popular in the women’s mags when the Bundt pan came out, pudding bundt cakes, the one with pistachio pudding so it is green, nut and cinnamon filling and topping, decorated with candy mint leaves and red hots.
 
Ooh, some great ideas here! I knew I could count on you guys to come up with something yummy. 👍 I was planning on probably turkey (maybe ham), but now DH says he wants a Christmas goose! :eek: We’ve never done that before, so maybe that will be a new tradition for us. 😛 Now I’ve just got to narrow down some side dishes. I’ve been emailing all my aunts trying to find my Grandma’s pecan pie recipe too–another thing I’ve never ventured to make. Keep 'em coming! I still need sides!
 
SeekerJen said:
Dinner varies. Christmas breakfast is always tamales.
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Oh man, yes! I miss being in Texas where I could get real tamales. Heck, just drive to the Fiesta Mart and someone is usually selling them in the lot.

For Christmas Dinner. we usually have Ham, Potatoes, Beans, a form of Ambrosia salad, regular fruit salad, Pasta if at my brothers.
 
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