Our annual Christmas buffet

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chefmaloney

Senior Cook
Joined
Oct 29, 2008
Messages
179
Location
Acton, CA.
Each Christmas my family gathers and we each bring a dish.
It's our Thanksgiving. I love all the family, company, togetherness.
Seems like everyone just loves the dish that each family member brings to the buffet and we can't break tradition because everyone would be disappointed if someone brought something different.
We all look forward to my mothers candied ham, gramma's corn casserole, sister-in-laws broccoli & cheese bake, etc.........
Everyone seems to like my crock-pot bean recipe.
Just once I'd love to bring something different but I know I would catch H_ LL if I tried it.
One year I printed my bean recipe and handed it to everyone just in case they wanted to try it themselves sometime other than at Christmas.
Guess I'm just getting old and lazy :sleep: :-p
 
so..bring two things. The beans that everyone NEEEEDS and introduce a new dish for them to fall in love with!
 
chef, you're right------you're lazy........BUT in your defense if you're tired of making the beans make them one last time.......festive them up a bit --------print out so long farewell.......goodbye to the memories, etc, and tell them that you are going to do something different even if it's to put a relish dish together or open a few bags of chips with bean dip, etc, etc,.........you've given them your recipe and someone else of the younger set can make them........better yet invite one of them over for an afternoon of bonding and show them how to make them..........then they take the tradition over.........beans from scratch are time-consuming..........I was just teasing you about being lazy..........
 
I would make whatever the heck you want and too poo with them. It's about family and friends getting together, that is why we love the holiday. That is what you can tell them too. Next year, you will send the beans and stay at home and relax!! HEHEHE
 
The first question to ask yourself is, what will my reaction be if my sister-in-law doesn't bring her broccoli and cheese bake? Or, what will my reaction be if gramma doesn't bring her corn casserole? :mrgreen:

If everyone really is locked onto this menu, you might want to make a few calls and find out if it would bother anyone if you brought something different. Or, as has been said, you can bring something new in addition to your regular contribution. And of course, you could just shake things up and bring something new, along with extra copies of your bean recipe.

:)Barbara
 
I'd make the bean dish and something new then you can tell them you're only going to bring one dish next year and ask them which they would rather have.
 
thanks everyone. They are all wonderful ideas. I just talked to my niece and she says I absolutely must bring the beans. Says she will harrass me daily until I tell her I am bringing the beans. She will tell her 3 sisters and they will all haunt me. She said "YOU HAVE TO BRING THE BEANS"
I'm calling her back right now to tell her that I am bringing the beans.
You see? Flattery will get you everywhere (at least with me) :>)
 
This actually happened to me!!!!!!

My husbands family is exactly the same. We all get together a week or 10 days before Christmas (it has to be convenient for the out of towners) and everyone brings something. One SIL brings curried cauliflower, BIL brings veggie tray with dip, inlaws supply ham and/or turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy. I am always asked to bring the same boring thing....my mustard glazed carrots. They rave every year over this and it is simply brown sugar, butter and regular mustard over boiled carrots. DH keeps saying "you can make so much better stuff, so why don't you?". So last year I made a brussel sprouts casserole with bacon and cheese, and rice stuffing balls.

As they were unpacking the food to put in the oven to warm, everyone was literally looking for the carrots, not paying any attention to the other dishes. So, I sent DH to the car to get the container of carrots I had already cut up and ready to go and the little dish of the glaze I packed, for just such an "emergency".

They all said the other dishes were okay, but I sure scared them when they thought I didn't bring the carrots.:mad:

Hopefully your family is a little more flexible.
 
Sorry folks, but my inlaw's eat fire for breakfast. They would just say the carrots were slightly nippy and probably like it! I think I will just quietly make my carrots as is and let sleeping dogs lie.

Chefmaloney, another idea for your beans....give them a little scare like I did. Make the beans and something else. Leave the crockpot in the car and when they all panic and faint, THEN bring in the beans. Won't change anything, but you will get a little fun out of it!
 
Barbara L ....speaking of wasabi.....
One evening I was at a restaurant with some friends. We were eating appetizers, Karen, who was sitting across from me picked up a whopping forkfull of wasabi thinking it was avocado. As she saw the inside of her nostrils she coughed and blew that big ball of fire across the table where it landed on the floor behind me.
We still tease her about that night.
 
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