Holiday food traditions....

Rightupinthere · Post by **Rightupinthere** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 11:41 am

I'll tell you the truth, I really don't have a particular food as a tradition. My family just has a tradition of having really good food every year. It's experiment time, kinda.

Wife's family (from TX) usually has a Tex-Mex affair on the eve of Christmas day. We're having my brother-in-law up from Tulsa so I'm going to give him full run of my kitchen. It should be very good.

Christmas day, brother in law and I will be putting together a traditional English feast complete with roast beef, yorkshire pudding, and roasted root vegetables. Dessert with be a chocolate bread pudding with a butterscotch rum sauce.

New Years Eve will be fondue. Oil, cheese, and chocolate. We continue to invite people over so the oil fondue may be nixed in lieu of something more legistically sound.

Bleeding Orange · Post by **Bleeding Orange** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:12 am

My family has always been pretty traditional, in our own terms. For Christmas eve dinner we always have clam chowder and ham and swiss sandwiches (wrapped in foil and baked). On Christmas morning we always have eggs wrapped in bacon (baked in a muffin tin - very, very good) and fresh sliced oranges. For Chrismas dinner we usually have turkey and all the trimmings.

This year, however, we are actually thinking about having a goose. When that suggestion was made, I suggested just going full-on English-style Christmas with pudding and the chim-chim-cheroo and such. RUIT, I may want to pick your brain for recipies, if you wouldn't mind. We've never done anything like this before, but I think it would be kind of fun!

McConvey · Post by **McConvey** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 8:13 am

For Christmas Eve we always eat dinner out and I always pick where. Afterward we go for a drive and look at Christmas lights. This was much more fun before my brother was old enough to drive and started torturing us with only Christmas music

For Christmas Day we have hot cinnamon rolls for breakfast.
For dinner we've always had crab legs. I don't like crab legs so I always get to choose the turf: usually either steak or ham. Depends on what I'm in the mood for. We also have mashed potatos (occasionally scalloped, but usually mashed), dressing, and of course green salad! Dessert is pie or ice cream or both.

Rightupinthere · Post by **Rightupinthere** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 12:32 pm

Bleeding Orange wrote:For Christmas eve dinner we always have clam chowder and ham and swiss sandwiches (wrapped in foil and baked).

YUM!

I have no effing idea how to cook a goose. I only know when my goose is cooked.

Jacobs4Heisman · Post by **Jacobs4Heisman** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 1:13 pm

GIANT honey baked ham, mashed, scalloped, and cheesy potatoes, green beans, apple bread, corn, apple/cherry/pumpkin/pecan pies, and a few other rotating dishes. All our family goes to my Grandma and Grandpa's house to open presents and enjoy the feast. I always basically got 2 christmas mornings, because I rule.

I'll be glad to be home for Christmas this year. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner was fun and all, but the food always tastes better when somebody else just brings it to you. I like ham better than turkey anyway.

My family doesn't have any Christmas eve food traditions. Normally, after church, a few family members would come by and we'd listen to some christmas music, and have some eggnog (spiked with Captain of course).

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:43 pm

Christmas Eve was the big tradition for my family.

We always put together a huge meal for just my parents, my brother, and myself. Shrimp Cocktail, Steak, and usually crab legs or lobster tails. Then we would all pile in the car and drive around looking at Christmas lights before heading to midnight mass at St. Al's. In recent years we haven't really driven around looking at the lights any longer, but we always did when we were younger.

Then on Christmas morning we'd open our gifts, then head to one of the grandparents' houses (we rotate every other year, rather than try to go to both in the same day).

I have one side of the family where we can all cook. The other side of the family isn't real culinarily inclined. If we're at dad's side it could be anything from turkey, to prime rib, or ham...sometimes more than one meat. Everybody brings various awesome side dishes. If it's at mom's side it's usually a boneless ham with cheesey potatoes, Betty Salad, probably some jello stuff, etc.

Holidays definitely taste better at dad's side

Falconfliccbone · Post by **Falconfliccbone** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:00 pm

Christmas Eve is either a nicer dinner like baked chicken and mashed potatoes or we do Mexican, normally green enchiladas (my favorite!). Then we go to church, go look at the lights, and come back and open presents.

Christmas morning we eat chocolate from our stockings (super healthy I know). Then in the afternoon, we do the same meal that we do for Thanksgiving: turkey, mashed potatoes, Stove top, rolls, sweet potatoes, fruit salad, pies, and more candy (normally homemade).

For New Year's, we do ham (normally honey baked because those are delicious), potato salad, and rolls. We don't have any family coming, so it's normally kind of small on the meal side.

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:29 pm

Falconfliccbone wrote: Christmas morning we eat chocolate from our stockings (super healthy I know). Then in the afternoon, we do the same meal that we do for Thanksgiving: turkey, mashed potatoes, Stove top, rolls, sweet potatoes, fruit salad, pies, and more candy (normally homemade).

I don't want to knock anyone's holiday traditions, but if you guys are eating stove top for Thanksgiving Dinner, you REALLY need to stop by my grandma's for Thanksgiving sometime. Homemade stuffing is among my very favorite foods...not a big fan of Stove Top.

Jacobs4Heisman · Post by **Jacobs4Heisman** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:45 pm

The food network had some sweet stuffing recipes in the pre-thanksgiving schedule. I was going to try one that involved chestnuts and bacon, but I didn't have time. I might try to cook something like that up to take to grandma's this year. I never liked the stuffing my Grandma always made to go inside her turkey, but some of these outside-the-turkey recipes look downright fantastic.

jacojdm · Post by **jacojdm** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 5:01 pm

Christmas Eve is always the same thing in my family, and has been for years. As an Italian tradition, we don't eat meat on Christmas Eve (it's not one of those meatless days for all Catholics like Fridays during Lent). We always have Baccala (a salted cod) that is baked in my mom's (for the past 15 years...my grandma did it before she passed away) meatless spaghetti sauce. My grandma also used to make calamari, but my mom never does that these days. We also have fresh, homemade spaghetti, also in the meatless sauce, and an assortment of other simple sea foods like shrimp, orange roughy, etc.
Christmas morning is always a homemade coffee cake (I don't know why) , and dinner means ham, turkey, and homemade ravioli, but in my mother (and grandmother's) traditional meat sauce. My friends, who seemed to sort of enjoy the novelty, will still stop over on Christmas day in the evening while we're all back home to have the usual Christmas ravioli.

Zom · Post by **Zom** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 5:47 pm

Cheese fondue. Mmmmm. I give everyone a port glass full of kirsch and have them dip their bread in the kirsch before hitting the cheese. There's never a sober grown up in sight by the last "scrape", and I swear you'll even feel like kissing your ex!

I've had cheese fondue served in a very large crusty "cob" loaf, where the top of the loaf has been taken off, the rest of loaf was hollowed out, filled with fondue, and when the fondue was finished, you tear apart the crust and eat that. If you want to be drunk AND romantic, peel and de-seed a couple of smallish tomatoes, puree, and add to the mix. Turns out a lovely pink colour, your love one will go all gooey eyed at your romanticism, and your ex will get mad as hell!

1987alum · Post by **1987alum** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 2:01 am

Christmas Eve is a work day for my wife, who directs the children and youth choirs at our church. We usually have stromboli from our favorite Italian eatery for dinner. Christmas Day starts with the famous Penn State sticky buns and ends with a great ham dinner at my in-laws.

h2oville rocket · Post by **h2oville rocket** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 1:23 pm

hammb wrote:
Falconfliccbone wrote: Christmas morning we eat chocolate from our stockings (super healthy I know). Then in the afternoon, we do the same meal that we do for Thanksgiving: turkey, mashed potatoes, Stove top, rolls, sweet potatoes, fruit salad, pies, and more candy (normally homemade).
I don't want to knock anyone's holiday traditions, but if you guys are eating stove top for Thanksgiving Dinner, you REALLY need to stop by my grandma's for Thanksgiving sometime. Homemade stuffing is among my very favorite foods...not a big fan of Stove Top.

Just did a great new pear/sausage stuffing for T-giving. Kids hated it as expected so I really got to load up on the extra! I'm with you-Stovetop is quick, that's about it.

Shakeatailfeather04 · Post by **Shakeatailfeather04** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:03 pm

We don't have any set-in-stone Christmas food traditions, but on New Years Day we always have pork and sauerkraut. It's a PA Dutch/German (my dad's family is PA Dutch) tradition and it's said to bring good luck for the coming year. I don't think there has been a New Years Day in my life when I haven't had that for dinner- I'm kind of scared of what will happen if I don't!

Jacobs4Heisman · Post by **Jacobs4Heisman** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:12 pm

Shakeatailfeather04 wrote:We don't have any set-in-stone Christmas food traditions, but on New Years Day we always have pork and sauerkraut. It's a PA Dutch/German (my dad's family is PA Dutch) tradition and it's said to bring good luck for the coming year. I don't think there has been a New Years Day in my life when I haven't had that for dinner- I'm kind of scared of what will happen if I don't!

My family in PA has always done the pork and kraut thing too. I loathe sauerkraut, but my new years tradition is I always make homemade sausage gravy and biscuits for "breakfast" on New Year's "Morning". I had to learn to make it just like my Mom before I moved away so I could continue the tradition. It's one of my specialties.