My menu never changes, there would be a revolution if I did. Holiday menus are a tradition in our family.

Christmas Eve will be a Tourtiere with homemade chile sauce for some, gravy for others. Sides will be baked beans, cole slaw and mashed potatoes. Dessert is lemon meringue pie.

Christmas morning we have pea meal bacon, bangers, fried eggs, homefries, sliced tomatoes and English Muffins.

Christmas Dinner ( remember our Canadian Thansgiving is in early October so we are ready for another turkey fest!)

Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
Ham
Sweet potatoes
Baked beans
Cauliflower and broccoli with a cheese sauce
Carrots some way or another
Cranberry Jezabel
Pickle tray
rolls

dessert is what ever someone brings plus a cookie tray.

Boxing Day is my favourite...turkey, stuffing and mayo sandwiches with dill pickles on the side!

Used to have Christmas Eve at my mom's where she'd serve up the traditional Christmas dinner. After midnight Mass, we'd come home to turkey, french tourtieres, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing/dressing, pickles, rolls, and whatever other veggie she felt like making. Afterwards we'd open gifts. After that, we'd have sugar pie, sucre a la creme (which is a decadent french fudge that melts in your mouth) fruit cake, and molasses cookies.

We'd stay at mom's until about 3:30 or 4:00 A.M. then go home.

After a few hours of sleep, we'd go to my mom in law's where she had Christmas breakfast... consisting of ham, eggs, and drinks (yes, eggnog and rhum or whatever our pleasure was). I don't remember the breakfast so much because we were so darn full from Christmas eve dinner. We had a liquid breakfast mostly ;).

Later on, we'd meet at hubby's sister's (whichever one is doing dinner that year) and have another turkey dinner... except this one being a little more anglicized. Ham would be included, and plum pudding, and yams. We don't mind eating it twice, three or even four times during the holidays.

Nowadays, now that we live far from family, we just have tourtiere with homemade "chili sauce" or ketchup (I like ketchup lol) on Christmas eve. Then we make a turkey dinner on Christmas day. During the day we mostly nibble on whatever until supper.

When I married into my DH's family, their tradition was a lovely Christmas Eve dinner, fruit soup...lingon berries lutefisk etc...
Then reading the Christmas story and opening presents and going to church.
When the grand kids came along, they were too excited to sit through all that...so we, at my suggestion, to kid friendly finger food....shrimp, meat balls, a cheese tray, veggies, cheese fondue, baked salmon filet....and then open gifts....and put the kids to bed .....who hires a sitter for Christmas Eve Midnight services? and so to bed ( or to assemble toys!)
Now, my son and his family are here....and my daughter with her inlaws for Christmas Eve, and the kids are older ( youngest 11) so we do munchies, little smokies, cheeses, crackers, home made rolls....and a big chunk of beef filet and shrimp...dessert is cookies.
Christmas breakfast is juice and coffee and my sticky rolls....and then my daughter and her family arrive about noon and we have a munchy buffet...shrimp, cxheese, meat balls, salmon, chips, dips, spreads and champagne or bloody marys...or chocolate milk...juice and lots of diet Coke!
Dinner is turkey and all the trimmings!
And....and we all hang spoons, squirt whipped cream and play games with wine charms!
Linda C

My husband's parents used to celebrate the English way, or what they thought was English (they're from Hong Kong). A full dinner at 6p on Christmas Eve, putting up the tree, opening presents at midnight, and then eating a full meal AGAIN at 2am in the morning Christmas Day!

This really wasn't very enjoyable for me, and since my MIL worked it was pretty stressful for her, too, doing all that stuff! They would make roast leg of lamb (Chinese will eat meat in huge quantities if they can afford it!), shepherd's pie, several Macanese (Portugese recipes adapted from Macau cuisine) dishes, and one little lonely package of Green Giant creamed spinach for 8 people.

Eventually over the years, they stopped doing these parties, due to ill health and just getting tired of all the work involved. I was secretly relieved, although my husband STILL misses opening presents on Xmas Eve, LOL!

My family of third-generation Asian Americans, celebrates Christmas Day. We never have a set menu, as all of us, including my now-grown-up nephew and niece, are dynamite cooks and love to experiment. Although we do a mostly traditional Thanksgiving, Christmas is always different. Sometimes we do "theme" ethnic cooking; sometimes we do more traditional stuff. This year it's slow-roasted salmon and prime rib, because my nephew is anxious to try cooking his first Big Piece of Red Meat :))

I make a smoked salmon sushi appetizer that the family really likes, so I offered to do the hors d'oeuvres this time. My BIL is vegetarian so he'll do a Greek salad and we'll have a couple of desserts -- probably a tiramisu and a fresh strawberry tart with lemon curd filling. My sister is in charge of the starch this year, could be pretty wild as she approaches cooking as a science experiment!

New Year's we celebrate individually. My sister and her family do a buffet drop-in. My husband and I usually make ourselves a nice festive brunch -- blueberry French Toast or Chocolate Pancakes, and then maybe rack of lamb or filet mignon for dinner.

For breakfast on Christmas morning it's always the same -- oysters, fried potatoes, biscuits.

For dinner, turkey, stuffing, ham, collard greens, mac & cheese, string beans, cranberry sauce, candied sweet potatoes, home-made rolls, sweet potato pie, cake for dessert

We do an early dinner on Christmas Eve at SIL. Gifts are exchanged. Dinner is usually ham, but this year is prime rib. I am taking that green bean casserole (kids like it) an hors d' oeuvre and some beets. Took them to Thanksgiving and it seems everyone's aversion to beets has been solved. You just have to know how to cook them properly (not opening a can).

Christmas morning tradition is homemade sticky buns with OJ and coffee. I put the oven on and buns in when I come down to turn on the tree lights.

I cook Christmas Day dinner. Hot crab dip with crackers and shrimp cocktail for starters. I am having prime rib as well LOL, roasted halved plum tomatoes with stilton, candied sweets (not from a can), mashed potatoes, roasted beets and still working on a green veggie;) Dessert will be assorted cookies, pumpkin cheesecake, apple carmel pie and coconut custard pie with some good Starbucks coffee.

Also, what is tourtiere? Sounds like it is something yummy that I defintely should know how to make. Thanks!

Happy Holidays!

Tourtiere is a french canadian meat pie... we make ours a little differently than the link I'm sending out... but it's pretty close.

We don't do bread crumbs in ours but cook up the meat along with small diced potatoes (they are what thickens the meat mix after the beef stock/bouillon is added).

Some people also mix in ground veal with the ground pork and beef. We don't. Also, we don't add cinnamon or nutmeg (no sweet spices, but maybe it does taste good?). The MUST have is clove though, but not so much as to overpower. The meat and potato mix (potatoes should not be noticed by then... in our pies anyway)is put into a double unbaked pie shell. It's a moist but not overly wet. It IS delicious!

It's a good idea to google "Tourtiere Recipes" and maybe find one that suits your tastes... or do like me with some recipes, I find a severals and make up my own LOL version by mixing them all up.

PS: Some of these pies are called "tourtieres" which is not the traditional tourtiere that I know of. They use chunks of meat and potatoes. These are what we (my area of Quebec) call "un pate a la viande" Often in New Brunswick french communities, they do the flip flop of names... meaning that a pate is actually called a tourtiere. These recipe names are often interchanged freely.

I forgot to include the link in my message LOL!

Here is a link that might be useful: French Canadian Tourtiere

Chinese food, of course! We're Jewish. :-)

Merry Christmas to all our Christian forum pals. I hope it's been the best one ever.