What are you serving for Christmas dinner?

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Christmas has been held at my parents home for years. All of us children (there are 3 of us) and grandchildren (6 so far) gather on Christmas day to celebrate. This year, though, my DH and I decided to give my parents a break - as they are getting older and tire more easily - and host Christmas dinner at our house! This will be a HUMONGOUS change for my Mom, who is usually the cook (she is a WONDERFUL cook). But we want her to get off of her feet and out of the kitchen so she can simply RELAX!

This will be our first family Christmas that my dh & I have ever hosted! We are all excited and praising God for the wonderful opportunity 👍

What are you cooking for Christmas dinner? I could use some suggestions!

God Bless!
 
I’m having a laid-back Christmas dinner this year. I have done goose (yum) or pheasant (yum, yum) but this year,.somebody gave me a nice ham, so I’ll serve that and a turkey and a whole filet of cold poached salmon on a bed of watercress with radish roses. The other courses are all tried-and-true easy make-aheads: parslied parsnips & carrots; puree of minted peas, mashed potatoes (yes, Virginia, they CAN be made ahead and nobody will know), sage & onion stuffing, lots of gravy (my specialty), maybe some baked yams.

Then for dessert we’ll have 1) orange sherbet mixed with cranberry sauce and 2) plum pudding. Christmas does not happen until the pudding is on fire and the bayberry candles are burnt down to the socket Christmas night.

As I said: no culinary pyrotechnics this year. Just comfort food. I.e., food I can handle comfortably.
 
We’re celebrating as a family on Christmas eve with a seafood feast. We will have at least four different fish as well as scallops, shrimp, and hopefully lobster and clams if we can get live ones this weekend for a good price. The only side dish we have decided on is some sort of fried potato, tater tots have been mentioned, but I’m not sure about that!

If it were Christmas day, our family traditionally serves goose with all the usual Thanksgiving trimmings. If we have more than a houseful of people attend, in the past we have had both goose and ham (I’m not a ham fan though…)

What are you thinking about serving? I’m planning my little family celebration with just my husband and our son on Epiphany, that’s when we will exchange our gifts. I’m not sure what to serve though!
 
We normally serve deli ham (swedish style if at all possible), deli potato salad, chips, dips, olives, stuffed celery, pickles, Christmas cookies, assorted breads, and Jesus’ birthday cake on Christmas Day. This was a tradition started by my grandmother.

HOWEVER, this year we are not going anyplace, and fresh turkeys the day after Thanksgiving were $9 each for 21-24 pound birds. I got three, took them home, prepared them for freezing, and will unfreeze one starting tomorrow.
 
Christmas even supper will be something easy, stew or chili - maybe pizza.

Christmas Dinner will be at G-MILs, will be ham and augrautin potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, pies, all the trimmings.
 
My cousin sent me a big ham from New Braunfels Smokehouse. So, that is what we are having. I’ll probably also do garlic mashed potatoes, a salad, brocolli caserole…Not too sure what else. My aunt in LA sent me pecans, so probably a pie. My parents and sisters are coming, so it will be nice.
 
Wow!! Everyone eats such different meals!!!

My DH’s family always has cabbage rolls. They are vegeterian ( not him though ).

My family has duck - it’s a Danish thing.
 
Sina said:
Wow!! Everyone eats such different meals!!!

My DH’s family always has cabbage rolls. They are vegeterian ( not him though ).

My family has duck - it’s a Danish thing.
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My mom was English. We ALWAYS had duck. But goose was harder to get in those days.
 
Christmas day we’ll have dinner at mil’s and she told me she’s making ham. Christmas eve we usually have soup (it’s traditionally a fast day) with a loaf of some wonderful bread.
 
Sina said:
Wow!! Everyone eats such different meals!!!

My DH’s family always has cabbage rolls. They are vegeterian ( not him though ).

My family has duck - it’s a Danish thing.
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Can you post the recipe for veggie cabbage rolls, pls? I’m thinking the wonderful kind stuffed with sausauge and I’m sure that’s not what they are eating! LOL
 
We used to always do Chinese food for Christmas Eve and boeuf bourguignon for Christmas day (cooked ahead). That makes it easy. Since one of my sisters and family is leaving Christmas Eve night we’re just not following tradition this year and doing the dinner on Christmas Eve, probably have a relaxed Christmas day with leftovers.
 
dulcissima said:
We used to always do Chinese food for Christmas Eve and boeuf bourguignon for Christmas day (cooked ahead). That makes it easy. Since one of my sisters and family is leaving Christmas Eve night we’re just not following tradition this year and doing the dinner on Christmas Eve, probably have a relaxed Christmas day with leftovers.
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Ah, leftovers! I always call the day after the big day, “the cook’s Christmas!” Best part of the whole holiday.
 
Country ham and turkey for the main dishes. Then sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, corn, hot rolls (my specialty), cranberry sauce and whatever other side dishes people want to bring. Then for dessert, jam cake (three layers) and pecan pie.

We expect about 35 people.

Pray for me;)
 
Spiral sliced Hormel ham with that yummy glaze… my oldest craves this all year

scalloped potatoes (totally cheating and making the boxed ones)

sugar snap peas… these were requested by my son

cranberry-apple pie or compote (haven’t decided yet), mincemeat pie for DH

I go all out for Thanksgiving, everything from scratch, so I usually make Christmas a little easier on myself. I do make homemade eggnog though. Once you have made your own, it’s really hard to go back to the stuff from the store. Plus, mine has spiced rum in it! 👍 I also make pumpkin and cranberry breads for breakfast. We munch while opening gifts (AFTER Mass of course).

Merry Christmas, all! 😃
 
Alton Brown’s beer-battered fried fish, wild rice pilaf, some vegetables (probably broccoli and carrots, since that’s what I have), and a big salad with all kinds of stuff in it, like fennel, jicama, roast beets, and dried fruit, and goat cheese… some kind of homemade roll or bread, and a few appetizers.

(Christmas Eve, of course!)😃
 
My (mostly English) family always served the Thanksgiving-type turkey dinner for Christmas in the mid-to-late afternoon. We had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, creamed onions, canned asparagus, cranberry sauce, hot rolls, relish tray. There were pies for dessert - mincemeat, apple, pumpkin. Coffee and after-dinner drinks in the special glasses. Then, later, around 8:00 or so when we got a little hungry again, we pulled the turkey back out and made tiny little sandwiches of turkey and Smithfield ham (sliced so thin you could see through it) on Maryland Beaten Biscuits.

***Imagine my horror ***when I married my Italian husband and discovered that they ate LASAGNA on Christmas! Granted, it was the best lasagna in the entire world, but it was still so wrong! Lasagna, meat balls, salad & bread. My DH was so kind and agreed that we would do Christmas Eve with his family (crab cakes, steamed shrimp, roast beef, mashed potatoes, Italian cold cuts and good bread, cole slaw, and desserts) and join my cousins for dinner on Christmas itself.

We did that for many years, until a few years ago when many of his relatives had passed on and his parents were getting frail and needed help with the dinner. We joined them then for a couple of years, until his Mom died. This year his Dad is going out of town to SIL’s house, so we’re back to my cousins’ place again.

I’ve cooked exactly one Christmas dinner on my own. It was about 15 years ago, and it was the turkey dinner.

Betsy
 
RandA said:
Alton Brown’s beer-battered fried fish, wild rice pilaf, some vegetables (probably broccoli and carrots, since that’s what I have), and a big salad with all kinds of stuff in it, like fennel, jicama, roast beets, and dried fruit, and goat cheese… some kind of homemade roll or bread, and a few appetizers.

(Christmas Eve, of course!)😃
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Wow, that sounds good.
 
We’ll have ham and…macaroni salad!! My mom always made the BEST macaroni salad. She passed away in June, so I’m going to attempt to do justice to her salad by following her directions to the letter. We are also having pumpkin pie and dutch apple pie courtesy of Marie Calendars and our local grocery store (the frozen pies were on sale!). My mom always made WAY too much food. Since I’m the only cook, I’m planning on keeping it as simple as possible.

Kathy
 
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