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.

Ditto! This is the recipe that I'm using this year. It was a hit the 2 other times that I made it! Beef Tenderloin With Roasted Shallots **** Submitted by: Christine L. Rated: 5 out of 5 by 328 members Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes Ready In: 1 Hour 45 Minutes Yields: 6 servings "This tenderloin roast makes a good company dinner, It is similar to Beef Bourgignon, but requires considerably less cooking time. Roasted shallots are added to the sauce along with sauteed bacon bits. The recipe serves 6 and can be doubled." INGREDIENTS: 3/4 pound shallots, halved lengthwise and peeled 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil salt and pepper to taste 3 cups beef broth (two 14oz cans) 3/4 cup port wine (used more) 1 1/2 teaspoons tomato paste (maybe more) 2 pounds beef tenderloin roast, Trimmed (I used 4 lbs for 9 people) not too chilled! 1 teaspoon dried thyme (didnÂt use) 3 slices bacon, diced (used two) 3 tablespoons butter (used less) 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 4 sprigs watercress, for garnish DIRECTIONS: 1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). In 9 inch pie pan, toss shallots with oil to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Roast until shallots are deep brown and very tender, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes. 2. In a large saucepan, combine beef broth and port. Bring to a boil. Cook over high heat until the volume is reduced by half, about 30 minutes. Whisk in tomato paste. Set aside. 3. Pat beef dry; sprinkle with salt and pepper. In a large roasting pan, set over medium heat on the stove top, saute bacon until golden. Using a slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towels. Add beef to pan; brown on all sides over medium high heat, about 7 minutes. LET MEAT REST FOR A BIT AND COOL DOWN BEFORE COOKING IN OVEN!! 4. Transfer pan to oven. Roast beef until meat thermometer inserted into center registers 125 degrees F (50 degrees C) for medium rare, about 25 minutes. Transfer beef to platter. Tent loosely with foil. 5. Spoon fat off top of pan drippings in roasting pan. Place pan over high heat on stove top. Add broth mixture, and bring to boil; stir to scrape up any browned bits. Transfer to a medium saucepan, and bring to simmer. Mix 1 1/2 tablespoon butter and flour in small bowl to form smooth paste; whisk into broth mixture, and simmer until sauce thickens. Whisk in remaining butter. Stir in roasted shallots and reserved bacon. Season with salt and pepper. 6. Cut beef into 1/2 inch thick slices. Spoon some sauce over, and garnish with watercress. This recipe appears in our "Allrecipes cookbook". from Allrecipes.com 12/26/2006

What's she waiting for anyway? In my family and with most other families that I know the place, time, and menu for a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day dinner is planned weeks ahead. That is so that everyone is notified/invited and all cooks know what the game plan is and what they are to provide. Also, so the hosts can set their tables for the number coming or get in extra chairs, ice, china, etc. This meal requires a little more than just throwing some extra burgers or hot dogs on the grill like you would for a casual outdoor cookout in the summer. Even if you don't do "formal" dinners, you still need to be able to plan this meal so you are not rushed and harried. Is she subtly playing a control card with this?

Post dinner report. We had about 20 people over for this buffet meal. The idea was to bring out seafood dishes one at a time. Sides and salads were available throughout the meal, and people took plates and sat wherever they wanted at two dining tables, on the living room couch and chairs, or just standing around. As DD and I planned the meal, it started making sense to deviate from the traditional Seven Fishes dinner of full -on entree dishes. Instead, we decided to have every seafood dish more like an appetizer, that you could eat off a small plate with just a fork, so that the evening was more like a cocktail party with endless food. We also decided to keep each dish simple so that preparing seven dishes and serving one every 20 minutes wouldn't be crazy. To the extent possible, we'd prep ahead. When guests started arriving, we had salmon mousse on crostini ready. Two kinds of salmon mousse, because DD objected to my version. I make it by baking salmon, then putting it in the food processor and adding a couple garlic cloves, some shallot, salt and white pepper, heavy cream, a little bit of brie cheese with rind, a pinch of wasabi, lemon zest, processing to the desired consistency and taste, then placing into a squeeze bottle with pastry tip. DD was outraged at the brie cheese, and insisted on making her own version. Which, in the end, included cream cheese :-) Next was a shrimp louie salad. SWMBO made this, so I don't know what was in it. We made a clam fettucine, following a recipe that was so minimalist, it was intriguing. Heat a few garlic cloves in wrote a lot of olive oil, discard the garlic cloves, add clams in shells, cook until shells open, remove shells, extract clam flesh, return clam flesh to oil with parsley, cook a couple minutes more. Yes, that was it. This was a good cookbook, so we thought maybe the stripped-down recipe would bring out the essence of the dish. Turns out it basically yielded clams... in oil - ick. So we used the result as a base for a more full featured clam sauce, which salvaged the dish. DD made oysters in a leek sauce. You shuck oysters, clean the shells, lightly cook oysters to release liquid, combine the liquid, white wine (not too dry - or champagne or Prosecco), and cream into a sauce - there was more to the sauce but I wasn't watching closely - assemble oysters on beds of wilted julienned leek in the shells, broil, then sauce and serve. Meanwhile there was manicotti as well as other side dishes and salads that people brought, on the buffet. I made crab cakes. This was crab meat, minced onion and garlic, parsley, salt and pepper, a little red pepper flake, mixed with boiled and riced potato, molded into patties, dredge in egg and coat in Panko crumbs, then deep fry. A messy thing to do but they came out nicely. Normally I use egg and bread, not potato, as the binding agent, but we were trying a recipe from the Peterson book. It is a cross of crab cake and latke. Personally I prefer the way I usually do it. Then we broiled some halved lobster tails, with plenty of melted butter. We should probably have extracted the meat and cut it to bite size pieces, in keeping with the cocktail party appetizer theme, but by now we'd been cooking for hours and were getting bogged down by guests wandering into the kitchen, helpfully and insistently busing piles of dirty plates and glasses into the midst of our prep and cooking space. So I was having to do dishes while DD cooked, and our smooth process was getting chaotic. That's the drawback of a small kitchen. My new dishwasher requires a particular workflow. One side of the sink is full of soapy water. Dishes are scraped into the other side of the sink (that has a garbage disposal) then placed in the soapy water. When enough dishes have accumulated, they are removed from the water and placed into the rack which is loaded in the dishwasher. After the dishwasher cycle, which takes three minutes, the rack is removed and set on the counter. The dishes and glasses come out very hot so they are dry in a minute. Quickly remove and stack the clean ware. This is an effective way to wash a lot of dishes very quickly, but definitely interrupts cooking. The seventh dish was to have been scallops in lobster butter. We collected the lobster shells and were starting to make the butter, but then SWMBO reported that everyone was full and it was time for tea, coffee, dessert and the White Elephant present game. So we shelved the seventh seafood dish with some relief. There was still a lot of cleaning up to do!