I think a plain vegetable for the younger kids----peas, carrots or corn, etc..would be good....they may not eat this either but I don't see younger ones being very interested in spinach salad or glazed onions. I also think a cookie plate, brownies, or whoopie pies would be good for the kids.

Nice menu!

How well do you know the eating habits of the guests? I'm asking as I have a picky DH and he would skip almost all but bread, turkey, and cheese cake.

However I love your menu myself and my 5 year old daughter would too with the exception of the Desserts due to milk allergy and if it was milk free potatoes.

How about glazed carrots, roasted broccoli, or sautéed green beans with bacon, or just regular cooked green beans? I'm just thinking of what my DH would eat with my suggestions.

What? Turkey without mashed potatoes and gravy? Isn't there a Law somewhere? LOL

We are having thirty five people with all kinds of dietary quirks.

Vegetarian Eggplant Parmesan
Blanched and sautéed Green Beens with caramelized onions, mushrooms and red bell pepper (Sautéed in a veggie broth)
Ham
Carrot Casserole
Salad
Roasted Red Potatoes with caramelized onions, roasted in Chicken Broth until the broth is gone and onions caramelized.

All served Buffet Style.

Merriment:
Red wine
White wine
Craft Beer
Small bottles of water for the wee ones

Jello for the kids and Brandy for adults will be the dessert. Dessert died with my Mom. Miss her pies and nothing can replace them. The rest of our family agrees.

I have a larger table this year. It's 60" round with five leafs. The kids will eat at a 6' portable table next to our table.

Hmmm, green beans with bacon were what we ate growing up, that might work. Thanks, lyfia.

Gold, no mashed potatoes because I will also be working that day. I can do the au gratin in the crockpot in the morning before my shift starts.

Joanie, You are right on the onions and I am betting on that because my sisters, mom and I will likely devour the onions. I am hoping to discourage my 12 and 15-year-old from sampling them as they will love it. I do know that my 4 kids, and 1 nephew will eat the salad (sans dressing), I plan to put the goat cheese on the side for everyone to add at will, which my kids love (go figure). The other 2 nephews I am not sure about.

I would make a nice fruit platter for sure. Everyone enjoys it and it cuts the richness.

Not sure why, but to me au gratin potatoes only go with beef or ham. They are too heavy for the delicate flavor of turkey, chicken and fish IMHO. I would vote for a wild rice pilaf, or switch the turkey for a tenderloin.

I would also do a simple crudite platter, assuming the kids may not have the palate for your salad (yum!) or the pumpkin soup or even the onions? No work, looks pretty, not costly, and again everyone can nibble on it. I must confess crudites and fruit are always on my menus, esp w crowds and/or kids.

Lastly, I think the textures and shapes of your desserts are too similar. I would do one of them and then cookies or some individual desserts, or go crispy with smooth, etc etc

Can you share your balsamic glazed onions recipe?

I normally host Christmas Eve which for us traditionally is homemade ravioli, and then we go to my parents on Christmas Day. However, Thanksgiving seemed to wipe my mom out this year, so I offered to host Christmas Day instead since it's more people (my brother's family joins in on Christmas Day but Eve is just my parents and my family). So now I'm starting to think about our menu. I think I'm going to do a standing rib roast, but my mom, nor I for that matter, are big red meat eaters, so I'll have to come up with some substantial sides to go with it so my mom will have some alternatives. I'll be curious to see what others are having as I might get some ideas!

tish - I agree that a more mainstream vegie dish would be a good idea. Something with some colour - which is actually easy with vegies, a green casserole or carrots. Your onions sound delicious. Yumm

We are having

Turkey with dressing
mashed potatoes with goat cheese
spinach salad
roasted brussel sprouts with pancetta
cauliflower/broccoli casserole

apple pie
steamed carrot pudding with lemon sauce
shortbread, fruitcake, Russian tea cookies

I'm doing Christmas this year; my stepmother did Thanksgiving. There will be ~20 which is the usual. No little kids, youngest is my 13-YO niece.

For appetizers probably spanakopita from Costco and some of their chips/dip. Also getting Costco steaks to grill for the carnivores and my son has a freezerful of lobster tails he's bringing up for me to grill or broil. He also has a load of mahi he caught a couple of weeks ago and flash froze so I may fix some of that too. I'll make a big salad, starch will be baked potatoes and a batch of brown rice with veggies (I dump in a couple of cups of frozen diced mixed vegetables and they cook up nicely with the rice). A warm crusty loaf of bread finishes off the dinner menu, and for dessert I'll make a key lime pie--my tree finally started bearing this year so it's truly homemade. My family usually contributes some extra desserts, so whatever comes in we will eat.

I'm planning a menu that isn't as labor intensive at dinner time as the turkey/potatoes/gravy spread. Everything can either be made ahead of time like the salad and rice, or if it has to be cooked it can be delegated. We'll have plenty of guys coming who will do grill patrol. Baked spuds and baguettes just get tossed into the oven.

I hate parties that leave me feeling like I didn't even attend them because I was working the whole time!

Unless there is a sudden surprise front we'll eat on the patio. The weather has been unusually warm and sunny this fall/winter (don't hate me!) so that will work out well.

I'm having my roof, patio and outside of the house pressure cleaned before the holidays. Hoping that having a party will finally get us motivated to clean up the yard too! This fall has been grueling at everyone's jobs so my husband, my son and I have all been preoccupied and not stayed on top of things lately. Nothing like a deadline of people arriving at your house to get you moving.

I'd add mac and cheese, fruit tray and cookies.

In our family, everyone has seconds of turkey, gravy and salad. Kids, adults, oldsters all load up on those 2 things. Fruit tray would go over like a lead balloon.

I think your menu is perfect.

My four kids would dive in to the fruit platter before they'd go for vegetables/salad (but they wouldn't be allowed to eat one in lieu of the other unless the veggies were something they just didn't like, like brussel sprouts). While they will eat veggies and/or salad, they'd never go back for seconds on those but they would definitely devour a fruit tray. We also have a few who aren't big meat/poultry eaters, so having fruit as an additional dish would definitely go over well in my extended family. That said, we typically don't have fruit as a side dish in the winter, but we also make sure to offer a veggie side dish that we know all our kids will eat, like green beans.

I'd definitely add a nonstarchy vegetable to the list. I've been struggling with that choice for our xmas dinner as well, so I asked and got a lot of suggestions on the cooking forum...looking for an alternative to the standard green bean casserole.

I like the idea of cookies as well.

We have a standing rib roast with sea salt and herb crust on Christmas Eve, with wild rice, asparagus (vinaigrette this year), a salad (rocket, pears, dried cranberries and walnuts this year with Vidalia onion dressing), and a soup first course (creamy tomato with creme fraiche and home made sourdough croutons this year). After dinner we have a buche de Noel and drink wassail with a slug of rum or champagne pomegranate cocktails. We open gifts after dinner, and about half the time go to midnight mass.

On Christmas Day this year we're having Julia Child's roast chicken--- which really is, in her own words, very, very "chicken-y"--- with mashed potatoes (made with sour cream and chives), apple/ cranberry/ sausage stuffing, and green beans amandine. No dessert unless one of the kids or my mother gets very ambitious and makes one of her chocolate pecan pies.

Then we will all sit around in a stupor for several days until it is time to go back to school or work.

I like the cookie idea also. I too would add a more simple veggie for the younger ones (and the picky ones also).

We are hosting Christmas dinner and here is our menu:

ham
potato casserole (sort of similar to au gratin potatoes)
deviled eggs
green beans
corn
slaw or broccoli salad (if I don't decide to add a broccoli casserole for my brother)
fruit salad
rolls
I think I am making a coconut cake for dessert and will come up with another dessert - some type of pie and my MIL will probably want to bring stack cake.

Thank you for all the ideas. Here it is what I am considering now:

Sliced pears (because they won't brown as quickly) and if I can find a pumpkin dip that does not use cream cheese, I will put that out since the kids probably will not eat the soup. I may also put out some clementine slices. If this does not get eaten, my kids can snack on it the next day when the kitchen will be recovering.

For the side, I think I will use the green beans with bacon.

For the dessert, I will make the cheesecake and cookies. If I make rugelach and pecan tassies for some of the cookies, I can streamline the process by using the same base dough. Hubs has requetsed biscochitos too. I amy also set out some pretzel peppermint bark. Hubs wants to take something in to the office so I will make the chocolate truffle cake for him to take along with some of chipotle pecans. For our family I think I prefer to save the chocolate truffle cake for Valentine's day anyway.

Mtn, personally, I would love a tenderloin. But, we go out to dinner Christmas Eve and almost everybody orders beef. I hate slaving away over a very expensive cut when most everybody ordered prime rib the night before. My absolute favorite is to have a tenderloin and roast duck for Christmas but that will have to wait.

Here is the link to the requested recipe.

Here is a link that might be useful: Balsamic glazed onions

TinaM, your menu is almost exactly what we have for Easter dinner, except the potato casserole is potato salad :-)