Christmas dinner
 

The thread about Thanksgiving got me thinking about traditional Christmas dinners. My in-laws wouldn't consider anything but turkey appropriate. I feel that two turkey dinners within a month is needlessly redundant, and I've started a tradition with my own recipe for a stuffed filet mignon with a wine glaze.<BR><BR>In Europe, I doubt if turkey is commonly on the Christmas feast menu -- please share what is traditional for your area and what you like to serve.

For many years now, our Christmas dinner has always been Prime Rib and Yorkshire Pudding. There is a little British shop in Norcross, Ga. (near Atlanta)where I purchase the Christmas Crackers and adults and kids alike have a great time wearing the crowns and playing with the prizes inside. It wouldn't be Christmas for us without this menu!

Although my parents are originally from Spain, we currently live in Venezuela. <BR>Traditional Xmas meal at home:<BR><BR>Hallacas (corn meal dumplings stuffed with minced meat of pork, beef and chicken, olives, raisins, capers).<BR><BR>Chicken salad (potatoes, chicken, carrots, and apple dressed with mayo/mustard.)<BR><BR>Pan de Jam&oacute;n: (like a jelly roll of bread and ham, also has olives and raisins).<BR><BR>Pernil: roasted leg of pork sliced and with its natural juices.<BR><BR>Dessert: Traditional fruit cake receipe that has been in my family forever and originally from Spain.<BR><BR>

My childhood Christmas dinners,in the South were usually roast beef and trimmings or ham and Grandmother made her own pickle relish and pies.These days, in the NE,I and my family don't eat red meat, so it is usually something "International"-one year I made tons of Mexican dishes,this Christmas will be Lasagna and salads and breads.Italian families have a huge seafood feast on Christmas eve, we just try to get ourselves invited to one of those :)Our Christmas eating begins first thing in the morning, with something special with coffee while presents are being opened..there is food out all day for munching..then after dinner, we usually find a minute to sit and admire the tree and a fire and have dessert...No wonder January 1st is the beginning of diets if everyone eats like this on Christmas~M

In England turkey is very much the traditional christmas meat, often served with ham and/or pork, stuffing, sausagemeat, cranberry sauce and sprouts (incidentally does anyone eat sprouts at any other time?).<BR><BR>Before we had turkey (indigineous to the New World) goose was the tradition, and is much my favourite (expensive though). Hence the nursery rhyme "Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat".<BR><BR>In the Czech republic carp is the "meat" of choice, and very nice it is too.<BR><BR>The wierdest Christmas dinner I have had was in a kurdish restaurant in Jerusalem. You would never have realised that it was not just another day.

In itself it is curious, that not only meals differ from country to country, but the celebration dates themselves.<BR><BR>In Vz. we celebrate and open gifts the nite of the 24th. with mass at midnite. <BR>The 25th is spent mostly with the family visiting and enjoying.<BR><BR>In Spain, gifts are oppened in "Reyes" (I believe Jan.7 Mom used to put small presents inside our shoes and it would be a double treat for us.)<BR><BR>In VZ we have also adopted the Xmas tree. It is usually up and decorated on November, and taken down in some homes, even as far as February. There is a festivity on Feb.2 that is called "la paradura del Ni&ntilde;o" (the Child stands up", where little baby Jesus is taken down the street with singing and dancing. This is mostly done by the Andean people, not in Caracas where I live.<BR>

Hi David:<BR>What are sprouts?<BR>

Sprouts are a quite horrid vegetable (I think) which no-one else seems to eat at any other time of year! It's a British traditional thing. BTW we don't have turkey on Christmas Day in our house, but often a duck, or raost beef instead.....

Might David be referring to Brussels sprouts?

Brussels sprouts, yes. Most probably. I love it , but can do it without leek.

I think the brussel sprouts killed this thread.<BR><BR>Please, more input.<BR>

Cass,<BR>The traditional meal in our family is Christmas Eve--southern Italian--fish, fish, and more fish. For the past several years, Christmas Day has been roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and all the trimmings (usually spinach, carmelized onions, baked potatoes). Although we have roasted a goose (prune and apple stuffing)and also roast port ( red cabbage, apple sauce). Roast Beef is one the menu this year.

make that "pork"

Ana, I would love your recipes and I'm sure others would as well.<BR><BR>My understanding is that Yorkshire pudding is something starchy that falls somewhere in between popovers and bread - no?<BR><BR>Having a somewhat eclectic set of grandparents, we celebrated "Weinachtsman" on Dec. 5, filling shoes with oats for Santa's reindeer and rewarded, if good, with candy or, if bad, coal and sticks. Christmas eve was oyster stew and Midnight Mass. Christmas Day was stockings and one gift before more church, dinner and the rest of the presents after dinner (roast beef, mashed potatoes, peas, and plum pudding with "hard" brandy sauce). Epiphany (Jan. 6 -- visit of the kings) was the official day for dismantling the tree and house decorations.<BR><BR>But more dinner menus, please!

Whatever I make for Christmas, I try to keep it colorful..this years lasagne will be spinach and tomato sauce,keeping the colors of the season:) fresh Italian bread,salads with peppers tomatoes and bocconcinis,appetizers are usually capanota and olives(that I toss in warm olive oil,red pepper flakes and lemon zest)...gets the taste buds hopping! Then dessert is usually apple tarts or something ridiculously high calorie and chocolate...<BR>

I live in New York. My mother and I both feel that turkey on Christmas after having had it on Thanksgiving is unappealing, though the men can eat turkey anytime. I think a turkey Thanksgiving dinner is the all time favorite meal of most American men.<BR><BR>We usually have a Christmas Eve dinner at my mother's home of seafood. After dinner we open presents, sit around, admire the tree, talk and have more drinks or coffee. We're not Italian (everyone always asks me that when I tell them we have fish on Christmas Eve, which is an Italian-American tradition here in NY). We just started this because we have no small children in our immediate family, so therefore no reason to get up early Christmas morning to open presents. My mother and I can't wait to open presents on Christmas Day anyway. We tear into them the night before. Seafood and fish we just happen to enjoy, and we get good seafood in NY. So we start with caviar often, and oysters or sometimes clams on the half shell, smoked salmon, and we continue the fish theme with a main fish dish, perhaps a whole roasted sea bass. We wash all this down with champagne, sometimes followed by other wines. Desserts include a yule log, a chocolate cake shaped like a log and decorated with elves and trees and "snow", and which is orderd from a local baker not homemade, Christmas cookies and pies, usually a mincemeat, and pecan.<BR><BR>Christmas Day at my mother's home is leisurely. We get up late'ish, depending on wine hangover and how many Christmas Eve guests we've had. The last few years we've had more intimate dinners with fewer people. Usually my boyfriend and I go to his parents on Christmas Day. They always have turkey, therefore he gets his second turkey and "fixin's" fix. I eat relatively lightly on Christmas Day (except for the sweets).<BR><BR>So that's our "tradition". It isn't necessarily a regional thing, just what has evolved for us over the years.

Does anyone else have the tradition of oyster stew on Christmas eve? My roommate's family, from the US's midwest, always served a gruesome version with a thin broth -- seemed to think it was penance somehow, even though oysters weren't cheap. My New England family always made it a rich celebration with celery, cream, potatoes and sherry. We weren't Italian or even Catholic, but I do know it had something to do with not eating meat on the day before Xmas. Can anyone shed light?

My protestant Irish family in western Pennsylvania always had oyster stew on Christmas Eve - and little else. I never knew why except it was tradition. Seems to me that we were supposed to eat lightly before the big feasting on Christmas day.

Mexican food!<BR><BR>Christmas eve: tamales, beans & rice with my dad's family<BR><BR>Christmas Day: tamales, beans & rice at my mom's<BR><BR>Yummy!

From a Brit living in the US:<BR><BR>Yes, turkey is definitely the traditional British Christmas Dinner. But then we don't celebrate Thanksgiving so it's the only turkey of the year. Served as David says at the top of this thread. The traditional dessert is Christmas Pudding. I have a recipe handed down through my husband's family for generations. You make it with raisins, currants, golden raisins, sugar, breadcrumbs, eggs, suet (that's a problem over here in the US, we have it brought in from the UK!), lemon rind, stout (e.g. Guinness) and milk to make it moist. A few spices too. Put it in a pudding basin and boil it for hours - never fails.<BR><BR>Cass - Yorkshire Pudding is traditionally served with Roast Beef. You make it from a batter much like pancake batter - 4 oz flour, pinch salt, 1 egg, 1/2 pint milk. Beat it up and bake in a tin or in a special Yorkshire Pudding tin a bit like a shallow muffin pan. The US flour is different to our British "plain flour" so the result might not be quite the same.<BR><BR>We are going to Florida over Christmas so had our traditional Christmas Dinner aat home on Thanksgiving Day - turkey with all the extras, the dreaded Brussels Sprouts (don't overcook them then they are fine), Christmas Pudding and crackers (see Peg's posting)- again brought in from England. You have to wear the paper hat from the crackers while you are eating - and drinking of course!!

Hi Cass, Christmas day is always turkey and trimmings, which I love!<BR>However, Christmas eve's traditional dinner is a Lithuanian tradition (Kutchie, I think it is called). <BR>It is primarily fish (smelts, yech) and various "simple dishes"(herring, dried peas, boiled potatos, sauerkraut, etc) that remind people of the simplictiy of the true spirit of Christmas.<BR>When I was young, I used to dread Christmas eve dinner, big time. Now we have modified to please more modern palates, shrimp, pierogies, fried flounder, yumm. <BR>I love Christmas traditions.<BR>Judy. :-)

What is the "proper" dinner for Epiphany/Reyes/Kings, if that is the day you most celebrate? Is lamb traditional for that in Orthodox countries?

I grew up on the Christmas Eve Midwest oyster stew Pris mentioned above. Must be an aquired taste, as everyone in my immediate family loves it. Just milk & oysters & butter & salt & pepper. Yum. Though there's always a pot of chili for the in-laws. <BR><BR>As long as we're on gruesome sounding foods: for as long as I can remember my family has eaten ham balls every Christmas. It's ground beef, ground ham, and ground pork shaped into spheres with a sweet/sour tomato/brown sugar glaze. Also freakishly yummy. <BR><BR>Ham Balls don't sound nearly as bad when you know that the alternative was traditional Norwegian lutefisk, which is dried cod rehydrated in a lye solution. I am not making this up. The old timers eat it like candy!<BR><BR>The holiday feast also includes lefse, a traditional Norwegian food that 's like a tortilla, but made of potatos, eaten with butter and sugar. <BR><BR>Anyone from Norway reading this thread? Are lutefisk & lefse still traditional holiday foods there, or is it just us crazy Americans?

Thanks for all the yummy ideas. I want to try the roast beef and yourshire pudding for Christmas this year. What cut of beef would be good? The brussell sprouts are good and also the steamed pudding. What else with the main course would your see in England? Thanks for the help. I am tired of turkey.

Sorry, I meant to type "yorkshire" not yourshire pudding!

I just heard from my son who is living in Japan,teaching English..he has been there for a year and a half, we have not seen him in all that time.Sunday he called to tell us that he will be home for Christmas~I, thinking that this year, it being only myself and my husband,and of course the dog, we would have a little turkey or something, then go to a movie or something, if we couldn't just get away completely...now I have to get a big tree, do the wreaths,and plan a dinner that will remind him of how nice it is to be home,encourage him to want to come back home(the US-not especially this home:) and what to make since he is vegetarian!??? I will keep watching this site and will steal dishes from you all!<BR>Happy holidays~C

I married into a German family 41yrs ago and it has always been ham and sweet potatoes for Christmas Day and pork and sauerkraut New Year's day.

Our *whole* family including aunts, uncles, and cousins by the dozens get together on Christmas, formerly at different people's houses but now fallen to my sister who has lots of room and doesn't seem to mind. The hostess does the turkey and dressing and hot vegetables, and everyone else brings a casserole, salad, or dessert. One aunt always brings a Honey-Baked Ham and rolls. Sis lives in the country and so has lovely fresh-frozen corn and home canned green beans. We have sweet potatoes in various forms, mashed potatoes (we are southern, of course), scalloped tomatoes, broccoli and cheese sauce, other vegs., cranberry sauce and cranberry salad, fruit salad, etc., and an army of desserts beginning with jam cake. The counters are crowded with food, and we eat ourselves into an absolute stupor while visiting with each other and watching the cut throat Rook game going on. <BR><BR>The immediate family, only 25 of us, spend the night either at my sister's or brother's house, and it's a mad rush to get up and open presents and have some breakfast before getting dressed for the company. We do have little ones, so there's no waiting to open gifts. <BR><BR>It is a lot of work, but as the number of aunts and uncles dwindles we treasure more and more the time we have together.

When I was a "housewife," Christmas dinner was prime rib and yorkshire pudding with lots of side dishes and homemade cookies. Now that I work full time and host my three grown kids, their spouses and three granddaughters, it is a Honey-Baked ham, side dishes and whatever else I can con my kids into bringing as their contribution. It is no longer a sit down dinner as we have on Thanksgiving, but a buffet for eating most of the day while we unwrap presents and test the new videos and computer games for the little ones. Food has become less and less the focal point of the day. Having all my family there is the important part.

My grandmother is from England, so she always makes roast beef with Yorkshire pudding for Christmas (which I love). My WASP mother always makes ham with yams and mashed potatoes with brown gravy. My best friend, who is Italian, always has the 5-fish dinner for Christmas Eve. And my Polish brother-in-law always makes halushki, knish, potato pancakes, and cole slaw for his Christmas Eve dinner. In both the Italian and Polish cultures, it seems the Christmas Eve dinner is the more important than the meal on Christmas Day.

You are all great, and thanks for not letting this discussion disappear.<BR><BR>cdf: Why not fondues? You could do cheese with all kinds of bread and vegetables, or you could do a vegetable broth to cook veggies (such as mushrooms, sweet potato, etc.). Of course, you know what kind of dessert fondues are wonderful with fruit, angel food cake chunks, marshmallows. Warning: I once tried to make a white chocolate fondue and the flame got too hot -- the mix caramelized and turned an unpleasant brownish color -- tasted good but looked pretty fierce. Stick with chocolate (Hersey's morsels with cherry brandy make a wonderful fondue).<BR><BR>Or if your son accepts eggs, you could do a wonderful Christmas fritata with layers of red and green pepper, a spinach salad, etc., and splurge on wonderful cheeses either in the fritata or on some salad.<BR><BR>There are also some wonderful things you can do with specialized pizzas - e.g., with asparagus and red bell peppers, etc. <BR><BR>Stuff a round boule of bread with some wonderful mixture of vegetables and perhaps cheese.<BR><BR>He probably is used to various forms of tofu, but I'm not the one to ask for tofu recipes -- eh!

Oh, Cass, thank you , that is so nice of you! Actually, I thought since it has been a year and a half since he has had 'western'style food, I thought I would make some kind of Italian :) feast, making casseroles,breads,salads,and -yes-something chocolate..He has requested Mexican-I think that will be in a restaurant in NYC..CHristmas breakfast will be breads and pastries from the bakery and me, he hasn't had our kind of bread either! But I will be checking this thread, stealing ideas, he will be here for 2 weeks:)*he will probably go back to Japan a much heavier young man*

Inspired by our recent trip to Italy, my mother-in-law is having a multi-course Italian feast for Christmas. First we'll start with antipasti from DiBruno Bros. which our Philly family members always generously send. Then we'll have priests-stranglers, those lovely spinach gnocchi we loved in Tuscany. Next up is a roasted capon with sage and then the salad, caprese for the colors of Christmas. And for dessert we're thinking of tiramisu! And plenty of regional Italian wines to wash it down. But we are open to suggestions from the Italians out there ... anyone?

Cass:<BR>Thanks for giving us the opportunity to share all these wonderful ideas. I was also searching this thread but couldn't find it.<BR>

My grandfather came from Poland and Christmas Eve was always the big celebration. It is traditional not to eat meat that day. It is also traditional to have 12 dishes of different kinds of food, put straw under the tablecloth to represent the manger and set an extra place for a stranger. We always had shrimp cocktails, fried smelts, fried shrimp, and lots of other good stuff to eat. Plus the breaking of the "opwatek" (I know that's spelled wrong) which is like a communion wafer with embossed religous symbols. You take one and break off a piece from everyone else at the table and wish them a Merry Christmas. After supper we get ready for Midnight Mass and then come home and have a huge breakfast with homemade Polish sausage, eggs, babka, etc. Then we open our gifts. Christmas Day usually finds us in our PJs all day, lounging around and eating whatever is leftover from the day before.

For those who thought this was lost.

I love this thread!<BR><BR>Growing up, German on my mom's side & English on my dad's (both generations back), we never had turkey at Christmas or Christmas Eve. Always prime rib, or ham, or something like that; the rest of the meal was probably similar to Thanksgiving. We had a big dinner on Christmas Eve with a group of family friends, then opened presents Christmas morning, followed by a big dinner later in the day (no real breakfast or lunch, as I recall). My mom would make Christmas pudding or trifle (or both, if we were real lucky), for Christmas Eve or Day, both of which are delicious!<BR><BR>Now that I'm grown, live 1,000 miles away from my family, are almost-vegetarians, and my husband's family is not Christian, we're developing our own traditions. I think we'll have lobster for Christmas Eve, we always make homemade donuts on Christmas morning, then have a nice dinner, which could be anything that we all like that's festive. My son has requested Christmas pudding, so I'll pull out the mold that my mother gave to me to make it in. Aren't traditions great?

Lexma:<BR><BR>It IS a wonderful post. I have copied this into a Word format, and printed it out. <BR><BR>I have enjoyed reading all the wonderful traditions and yummy dishes. I will probably be very inspired this year, and put at least an extra plate for a stranger, or some straw under the table, or, or, or........

I have in-laws who are so, shall we say, deliberate about dinner preparations that it can go late into the evening; and on at least two occasions, they were so tired that they packed the dinner up and actually ate it the next day. No, this is not fiction, they actually have done that. <BR><BR>I think it's because they start with the quick stuff first, and wait to begin cooking the turkey until last. One year they had the turkey upside-down -- not purposely, as some cooks do, for the first half of the roasting to let the juices run into the breast and then turn it over for the last half for browning -- no, this was a true confusion about turkey orientation and anatomy. They hate to ask me advice about cooking, but eventually someone asked why it didn't look right. I tried to be as gracious as possible -- and it took heroic effort not to burst out laughing. But I don't think they ever forgave me for noticing that it was upside-down.<BR><BR>Sorry this isn't a recipe, except perhaps for intra-familial tension.

I am from Halifax, NS. My family is only small and we all live within 5 minutes of each other. Every year our x-mas eve tradtion is to have fresh Atlantic Lobster! We then go to Midnight Mass. On christmas day we all make it to my parents house for present opening and brunch! Then we all stay for the traditional Turkey Dinner with all the trimmings. My favorites are my Mother's homemade cranberry sauce and stuffing. The stuffing is a family recipe passed down made with sausages and apples. Yummy.<BR><BR>As for New Years we usually all get together and go to a Chinese Restaraunt!