What does your family like to have for Christmas dinner?

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What does your family like to have for Christmas dinner?


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Always Turkey here, you might even go as far as to say it`s Traditional :)

but I do super special stuffing balls to go with it, with sausage meat chestnuts and herbs etc... and they`re a meal unto themselves, infact nice when they go cold and sliced up on a sandwich.

there`s only been the 2 of us though, but this year we have 3 of us all with Teeth now, so I may just do that little bit Extra :)
 
It's great to hear about everyone's delicious menus!

We will be spending Christmas with my husband's family this year in Pennsylvania. His is a large Italian family. About 40-50 people gather each year at his 87 year-old grandmother's home and eat all day. Appetizers are antipasto, lots of olives, jarred pickles, etc...Main courses are homemade ravioli with meat filling, Sunday gravy with meatballs, short ribs, braciole, and Italian sausage on pasta, a roast beef, salads, breads, artichokes, and dessert is pot luck style with whatever everyone brings.

Oh, and lots of Chianti.
 
We have the traditional turkey dinner for T'day but I make it all year long so it's not really 'special'. On Christmas, we usually have bouillaisse but I've been known to serve a few racks of lamb.

We had a ton of seafood the Friday after Thanksgiving so this year it might be lamb. Mr HB and I'll be home alone. :( Well shoot, we might just go out for Thai! :-p We've never been wedded to a certain meal for Christmas.
 
Michelemarie said:
Yummm! Tamales!

I usually have Christmas and my family likes gravy - what we call pasta sauce. Last year I made stuffed shells, meatballs, brioccole, sausage. DH is from TX and he and his family aren't "pasta" people - he informed me that if I make gravy this year he is buying a ham for himself, which I think is rude, but whatever. I would love to make a stuffed tenderloin or prime rib, but both my parents and his parents like their beef to be cooked to the consistency of shoe leather and I just cannot bring myself to do that! I am leaning towards a pork roast - I plan on watching the threads for some good ideas!

How about a crown roast of pork, MM? That makes a lovely Christmas dinner, and you can be as experimental as you want to be with the stuffing. I've done that several times for Christmas dinner and it's a huge hit. This year, however, we will probably go with the traditional ham and stuffed cabbage. My favorite Christmas dinner.

BC
 
I've kept the same tradition set down by my parents many many years ago - which is to have a Roast Goose for Xmas. Back then, goose wasn't terribly popular & my parents always had to special order one from the local butcher. Luckily, these days I can easily find organic/free-range geese at my local supermarket.

I serve mine with Port Wine Gravy, Czech Bread Dumplings, Sauerkraut, & Butter-Braised Brussel Sprouts (try saying that one 3 times fast - lol!!!). Goose is such a rich meat, that's quite enough.

Since it's just the two of us, we get another full meal out of the leftovers, & then whatever goose is left over from that goes into my traditional New Year's Day French Cassoulet.
 
We are having turkey for a change this year. Usually we have a ham in honor of MIL's preference, but it's time to change things up a bit.

I will be going back to all the Thanksgiving threads to ponder what to do to this frozen bird I've got in my freezer. (First off will be when to take him out of the freezer!)

Sides, etc. still to be decided now that we're not doing the ham and the usual complementary sides of sweet potatoes and The Casserole. May even break down and make the yeast crescent dinner rolls this year.
 
It's funny, we were talking about this just last night. In Canada, for most families, it's turkey all the way. Our Thanksgiving is in October, so there's enough space between the two that it doesn't feel like an over-abundance of turkey.

I was actually pretty surprised to see that turkey's not at every table in the US on Christmas. I always see it on tv shows and movies, etc, so I just assumed it permeated through everything.

Christmas without turkey would be...empty.
 
Hey, where's the goose option??:ermm:

I suppose standing rib roast or tenderloin roast could fall under the roast beef category..

I didn't see the lasagna option either:ohmy:

Christmas Eve is a bigger deal around my house than christmas day. Christmas eve is fish, all kinds of fish, prepared all sorts of ways. No meat, just fish. Very traditional italian.

Christmas day is usually lasagna or manicotti or stuffed shells followed by a roast of some sort, either rib roast, goose, turkey or crown roast.
 
Like I said, it's always been roast goose for us as far back as I can remember. Mom was/is a big Dickens fan, & she read "A Christmas Carol" to us so often during the holiday season that I could almost recite it word for word by the age of 4, & could read it myself by Age 5 - lol!!!! (No, I'm not a genious. I'm sure a chimp could do the same if it was subjected to such repetition - lol!!!!!)

Christmas without a roast goose wouldn't be Christmas for me.
 
Vera, isn't there something about the "seven fishes" for an Italian Christmas Eve dinner? Seems like I saw Mario doing something about that.
At our house, it's ham. My mom always did a boneless ham, but I like those big monster bone-in hams. There's nothing like the taste of the meat from a whole ham...so succulent and juicy.
I always make mom's twice baked potatoes and bake a couple of pies. The rest of the menu is flexible.


 
Yes, there is. A very close NY Italian friend of mine wouldn't think of celebrating Christmas Eve without about a gazillion seafood dishes - everything you could possibly think of.

In fact, we were visiting one Xmas Eve afternoon when his brother showed up with about 6 huge plastic bags full of all kinds of fish for the evening meal (we were all NY Long Islanders on the water). Amazing!!

When we first moved to Virginia in 1994, in the Winchester area, the local supermarket used to carry all sorts of extra different fresh fish for the Xmas holiday - fresh sardines, fresh conch, scungilli, calimari - you name it. It was quite surprising for the area, & I LOVED it, even though I'm not Italian. We don't get that kind of variety down here in Culpeper.
 
I'm still undecided what we will have. Last year we had a tenderloin of beef, but my son and his family will be with us this year and his kids don't like beef. I suppose we will have ham or pork loin. I may get a small rib roast and a ham and make veggies and sides that will go with both. I don't have all my Christmas shopping done either so I'd better get on the stick.
 
Constance said:
Vera, isn't there something about the "seven fishes" for an Italian Christmas Eve dinner? Seems like I saw Mario doing something about that.
At our house, it's ham. My mom always did a boneless ham, but I like those big monster bone-in hams. There's nothing like the taste of the meat from a whole ham...so succulent and juicy.
I always make mom's twice baked potatoes and bake a couple of pies. The rest of the menu is flexible.



Good morning Constance

Yes, a traditional italian christmas eve meal is called the Feast of the Seven Fishes. When I was younger and my aunts were cooking as well as my mother, it was easire to hit the seven. Nowadays, the group around the table is a bit smaller and it's even harder to hit the seven. I'm planning on clams, shrimp, mussels, flounder and crab at this point.

Pasta with clams
Shrimp scampi
stuffed mussels
breaded and fried flounder
crab bisque
 
I'm not saying that is what I want, but my family (i.e., parents, sisters, cousins, etc, I don't have children myself) want exactly the same meal they had at Thanksgiving! One year I tried to vary it by having a goose instead of a turkey, and Mom insisted on cooking a turkey as well. I no longer live near my family, and can cook what I wish. I'm not sure what that will be this year. It's quite confusing because I have no idea who will be here. Usually a freind cooks Christmas dinner (I do Thanksgiving). But I'm half-expecting a half-dozen guests, so relieved her of the duty. But my family? Turkey, every time.
 
I guess we decided on a ham dinner with mashed potatoes with a milk gravy (yum) best part. I'm leaning toward a brocoli/culiflower salad and scalloped corn, squash and cranberries, rolls, cottage cheese with pineapple bits. pumpkin roll for desert later in the evening tho. There will only be the 2 of us plus our critters so I guess we have plenty to eat. But it is still fun to cook a big meal.Christmas eve I would like to do egg rolls, and fondue a few things like meat balls, french bread cubes, venison steak cubed, and also a veggie tray. I also make the little smokies wraped in bacon. The critters really enjoy those. After all that we don't eat for a week. :LOL:
 
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