This year, we have decided that after Mass, our extended family is going to a local theme restaurant. Each adult is going to pay his or her own way, and for any of their underage children involved. This particular place allows orders from the menu on Thanksgiving, but also makes a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner that includes leftovers. They give you a container as a matter of course.
My husband’s extended family is in California has “traditional” Italian and Sicillian food for Christmas. It cost a bunch to get us out there. We’re hoping to make it this year, but who knows?
We have never had a “traditional” Christmas here. Our tradition here was started by my grandmother, who hated to cook and had sobriety issues. When my mother was growing up, my grandparents lived in a cross Scandinavian and German neighborhood. One Christmas where she was functional but in no mood to cook, she stopped in the local deli on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and procured swedish meatballs, ham, german and swedish potato salad, pickles, etc. (No lutefisk. She was Irish and English and not willing to go that far). She then walked to the local bakery, where she picked up some limpa, dark rye, some sand tarts, peporkaka, and dainty cookies. We’ve been doing it ever since.
