Holiday Menu and Foods?

[feather]

Are you making plans for holiday menus and food?

So far DH wants cookies. DS and I want artichoke and spinach dip.

DH bought shrimp on sale so we could have shrimp alfredo and shrimp cocktail.

And he wants hamburgers (but when doesn't he want those?)

Do you do a sit down dinner for Christmas or New Years?

Do you like to graze? We mostly graze.

DS usually finds pickled herring sometime that week. We spoil ourselves. I have plans for a bunch of vegetable dishes and I want everyone to be happy and to feel loved.

[Melissa]

We have a big dinner on Christmas Eve afternoon for the immediate family. After that we let the grandchildren/children open their gifts. We generally clean up the house then we have a big open house (this can be 75-100 people!) for friends and other family members with trays of cookies and snacks. Christmas morning I cook a big breakfast for anyone who wants to come by. Then we go visit the grandchildren to see their gifts. In the late afternoon or evening we usually go to Kadia's house and have lots of appetizer type foods and snacks.

New Year's Eve I make homemade Chinese food. We play games and have snacks later in the evening. New Year's Day I do a dinner with pork and kraut and other side dishes.

I am working on my baking list right now. And I generally know what I am fixing for all the meals and get-togethers. I may find some new things though. I will feed lots of people over the next few weeks!!! lol

[tenbusybees]

We are having a Christmas party at church next weekend. For that I'm bringing...

Cowboy candy dip and chips/crackers
Molasses cookies
Cracker candy
Veggie tray

Christmas day is a snack-fest. I make a couple of really big hoagies and lay out a veggie tray and chips and dips. Plus all the cookies and candies we've been making all month. Friends stop by and we play games all day. I just love it.

The New Year's menu is still up in the air. That's the day we get together with my side of the family. It'll be at my mom's this year but the potluck theme (bbq, Mexican, etc) for the dinner hasn't been decided yet.

[Deleted]

We have brunch at the family home and do the stockings. DD and her husband live there now. Usually something easy like pancakes, crepes, cinnamon rolls or biscuits and gravy. They go to his families for 2pm dinner. Small dinner with DS at our cabin late afternoon. Ham slice, baked yam, carrot sticks, pickles, apple cider and custard. We don't do anything special for New Years....James.

[susannah]

For Christmas Eve supper, I normally make spinach/cheese manicotti. My mom always did lasagna for Christmas supper but my son prefers manicotti so I figure that's close enough to the tradition. We open gifts on Christmas Eve, just like we did when I was a child. Christmas Day supper has evolved to fajitas, with margaritas for the adults (I cook the Christmas Eve meal, and my son and daughter in law cook Christmas Day meal). Three types of Christmas cookies are a must - pecan fingers, spritz, and shortbread cookies covered with chocolate and walnuts, which my mom called Tea Cookies. If I ever showed up at any relatives house without pecan fingers at Christmas, I don't know if they'd let me in the door. Seems I'm related to a lot of Christmas cookie fiends and the pecan fingers are definitely the favorite.

New Years Eve is more of a grazing thing. It normally involves shrimp, veggies and ranch dip, fresh fruit, my husband's tradition of chips with this dip his dad always made ("the ketchup dip" - whipped cream cheese, Catalina dressing, garlic powder and yes...ketchup) and a few other things that rotate in and out depending on what we feel like having. And herring in wine sauce - always. That's the good luck food.

[Woodpecker]

My niece & nephew are doing Christmas again. I guess my sisters, brother & I are too old to do all that work😘. Since my mom & dad passed, usually the families do their own little things for holidays. Thanksgiving , usually & Christmas we all get together. My mother always told me “when the mother goes, the family falls apart.” She was sort of right.

I usually bring a crabmeat dip, that has to go with triscuts and an apple pie, but I haven’t heard from my niece yet, so I have no idea.

susannah, one of my parents traditions on Christmas Eve was a supper I never ate. Boiled potatoes, carrots, bobka, & herring. Then we would “break bread “ communion, with everyone & say a prayer with each person. That tradition started at my grandparents when we were children.

[Skandi]

We're a household of two fighting traditions, In Denmark there are two christmas meals, Christmas lunch which is sometime in December (his mums was today his dad's is the 26th) It's huge huge meal

course 1 Rye bread, pickled herring, boiled eggs, curry salad SNAPS

Course 2 Rye bread, breaded fried place fillets, remoulade SNAPS

Course 5 Rye bread, Hot pate with bacon and mushrooms SNAPS

Course 3 Sausages, glazed ham, chopped kale, potatoes done in caramel SNAPS

Course 4 Puff pastry cases with chicken and asparagus filling SNAPS
Course 5 Risalamande with one whole almond in it and cherry sauce

You are lucky to come away still walking.

And then Christmas eve where it is Roast duck, potatoes cooked in caramel, boiled potatoes, chips, pickled cucumber, pickled red cabbage and again Risalamande with one almond and cherry sauce.


Now in England it's on Christmas day and is Roast turkey, potatoes, veg including sprouts, stuffing, pigs in blankets, followed by Christmas pudding. (steamed suet pudding which is mainly dried fruit and brandy served on fire with custard)

So we're doing Christmas eve, with Duck, potatoes in caramel, pigs in blankets, stuffing, pickled red cabbage and Yorkshire pudding, followed by risalamande.

New year will be us and two vegan friends plus possibly one of his friends that has nowhere to go, so it will be grazing time, not sure exactly what yet.

[feather]

This is for you Skandi,

[dodgesmammaw]

All the traditions sound lovely! Not a traditional bone in my body. We are having a taco bar on the 26th.