What do YOUR holiday dinners look like?

[Aniia]

This year is my turn to plan the family dinner for Christmas, and it got me thinking. What are staples or favorites at other people's celebrations, especially since we have players worldwide?

 

In our family, we always have ham for Christmas (ever since a contest of wills between my husband and my sister's (now ex-)boyfriend over whether to have ham or turkey. Sis's (ex-)BF threatened to boycott Thanksgiving if we had ham and not turkey, so now ham is Christmas, and turkey is Thanksgiving), but other favorites are mashed potatoes, candied yams, and any kind of bread stuffing. 

 

How about you guys?

[orrrangeee]

i live next to a national park in canada. we usually drive into the mountains and eat at a restaurant

[Astreya]

My brother invited the family and my Mom will bring Rouladen along that go with mashed potatoes and red cabbage.

More info on Rouladen:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouladen

[Confused Cat]

My family usually has fondue chinoise. Apparently, that can mean different things in different countries (or different families); ours is mostly thin pieces of meat rolled up and cooked at the table in bouillon. (With mushrooms and fruit for the occasional vegetarian.)

 

This year my husband and I don't participate in family dinners, but I did buy some non-everyday-foods:

- ingredients for goulash (trying to make it like mother-in-law)

- fillet of pork to put on puff pastry cushions (I'm looking up tons of food names in the dictionary today  )

- raclette cheese

- cheese fondue (why yes, we like cheese)

 

So we'll probably end up all "ugh I'm never going to eat anything ever again (until tomorrow)" every day. It's a tradition.

[spatio]

We don't really have a holiday dinner at my house, since we're not very religious and don't have a lot of family nearby, but we do have an annual "baking day."  Friends and immediate family all trying new recipes for desserts.  It's super fun and at the end of it, we all have way too many sweets!  This year I made galaktoboureko, and other dishes included chocolate chip banana bread (my first time using quinoa flour - interesting texture imo), linzer cookies, rum balls, lemon bars, cream cheese cookies, apple cake, and a sponge cake to serve with fruit.

 

For Christmas eve this year - it's quite warm today, so we're opting for a camping-style cookout over a bonfire!  Hotdogs, roasted veggies, and hot cocoa under the stars~

[Anglia]

In general, we don't celebrate Christmas purposely. So we just have normal dinner; rice, eggplant with Minced pork, and sauteed tofu in hot and spicy sauce, that is all.

[HeatherMarie]

We don't usually have any set food for Christmas, but we do tend to have something that we don't often have. This year my stepdad sent us some money so we were able to get more 'special' food than usual, so we now have salmon patties and oven-baked ham sandwiches that will probably last us a week. Today, however, we are going out to eat at our favorite restaurant (tradition is normally to go to the movies on Christmas Day, but goodness there is just nothing good on!)

[GuesssWho]

Me and my parents and cardamom bread. This year we had beef and homemade french fries and wine and cider. We talked about physics and philosophy and why the very rich can afford to look very poor.

[catstaff]

Christmas Eve at my mom's, we have shrimp cocktail and a crabmeat-and-cheese ball with crackers for nibbles, antipasto, and manicotti for dinner, followed by the cookie tray and pies for dessert.

 

Christmas Day at my aunt's, antipasto, lasagna with extra meatballs and sausage, with an option of chicken nuggets and tater tots - mainly for the little ones in the family, although usually one or two of the older folks have some too.

[Sashimi]

We have different types of casseroles (liver, carrot, potato and/or rutabaga) in Finland. Some people enjoy them, some hate them, but they are very traditional. Then we have christmas ham with mustard(some people like to do turkey or some vegan option), mushroom sallad, spiced raw salmon, this thing called rosolli (salad from boiled beetroots, carrots, potatoes, apples and pickled cucumber) some other fish thingys, meat stew and potatoes.

 

Had some of it this year at my parents. Also my boyfriend's grandpa gave us some christmas ham, so we still have that in our fridge.

[Aqub]

Ate some corned beef and cabbage for ST Patrick's Day, something my family does every year.  I like the meal a lot, so I kind of wish mom would make it more than once a year!