Christmas cousin's house. I'm waiting for my assignment. I hope it's pie.

We are doing a repeat of Thanksgiving dinner as it all went smoothly and we enjoyed the food. I will add stuffing/dressing this time. So…Turkey breast, fresh green beans and mushrooms together, roast potatoes, roast sliced sweet potatoes in garlic butter., dressing, gravy and cranberry sauce. Oh Yes also a ham possibly half leg on the bone ready for us to slice. So quite a lot of food really.

Not sure about a starter as we would usually have seafood of some sort but one DIL is pregnant and I think shellfish is frowned upon these days for pregnancy.

Dessert will be a Yule log of some sort, I will source one in next few days and there will definitely be some sort of liquor involved with it possibly Tia Maria to go in with the chocolate. Also a fresh fruit salad.

We do have an nice panettone, squirrelled away to offer later after the meal with tea or coffee. Hope there will be some left for next day as DH and I love panettone with a cup of tea.

Lovely you’re helping your sister again amylou … the food all sounds great.

bacon-wrapped turkey roulade and some sort of squash or sweet potato and homemade rolls and DIY cranberry sauce and, of course, devilled eggs

Congrats, Neely!

Yes, Congrats Neely! And Lars, I hope you have a lovely time with your sister. At Thanksgiving, we invited a pescatarian friend to share dinner with us, and made Cioppino to enjoy with her. It was a lot less work than a traditional turkey dinner and the leftovers didn't last forever. Christmas will just be the two of us. I'm hoping to find a small prime rib roast and will make a sauce with horseradish, sour cream, and coarse Dijon mustard. I like to make some kind of cheesy potato gratin to have with prime rib. And then a simple medly of steamed or sautéed colorful vegetables. Dessert will be chocolates - we always treat ourselves to a large box of See's Nuts & Chews at Christmas. I'm not a baker, but will find some kind of breakfast treat - maybe a Christmas Stollen this year.

For the big extended family gathering on Christmas Eve, I’m planning to do a baked ham from our butcher, who smokes his own hams and bacon and wins prizes for them. They’re more expensive than supermarket hams but worth the money IMO because they taste so much better and a little goes a long way. I’ll also be making two salads as sides (it’s summer here) and desserts if I feel up to it. Probably potato salad but haven’t decided on the other one, and pumpkin pie, coffee cheesecake and brownies.

On Christmas Day we’ll have a late lunch with DD and her husband and our new baby grandson (who is an adorably sunny child). They’re coming over from the other side of the country for two weeks. I have a turkey buffe (a whole double breast on the bone) which I plan to stuff with bread stuffing and a sausage meat stuffing, and I’ll also prep bread sauce to take with the turkey over to where DD is staying. She will do the rest, and we’ll have another pumpkin pie (DD’s favourite :-) ) and probably other leftovers from the day before’s desserts.

@colleenoz - I have read about bread sauce but don't know what it is. Can you describe it?

You stud an onion or two with cloves and toss it into a pot with some blades of mace, bay leaves and peppercorns and then simmer it gently in milk until the milk takes on the flavours of the onions and herbs and spices. Then you strain off the milk and thicken it with soft white breadcrumbs before finishing with a large pat of butter and some pouring cream and serve it hot with any kind of poultry or game birds. I always use about twice as many aromatics as the recipe calls for. It makes a good foil for turkey.

There'll be 4 of us for Christmas day lunch so it's scollops in a shell-shaped puff pastry case with a leek /wine/cream mix sitting on the bottom shell with the scollop on top, then the top shell as a starter, then guinea fowl stuffed with caramelised apples. Served with roast potatoes, brussels sprouts with chestnuts, roasted parsnips and possibly carrots, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, sage and onion stuffing and a jus. Cheese, then an ice-cream log. I'm cheating with some of the meal to make life easier and I bought the guinea fowl and log from a frozen food shop. I'm told they're very good so I'm being very trusting LOL The evening will be an apéritif dinatoire as they'll be more of us and no-one will want a big meal. The, the next day is duck roasted and served a bit like peking duck but on toast. Sounds odd but it's very good. Then we can all go on a diet lol.

@Lars, You and your brother are so kind to invite your sister to spend the holidays with you. I’ll be you were surprised when she accepted your invitation. I hope you enjoy her visit and find renewed closeness as siblings.

We are at sixes and sevens right now because I’m not sure if my father will be home for Christmas. He’s in a physical rehabilitation facility following a hospital stay. It has been a bad year for him starting with a broken pelvis that took forever to heal. I think I will have to be adaptable with regard to Christmas dinner.

Not sure about Christmas but I’m having a card and game night this Saturday night and planning on bacon wrapped smoked oysters and bacon wrapped dates stuffed with Manchego cheese.

I have two meals.

All of the siblings will get together. What I will bring to the potluck:

• Cranberry and Brie bites
• Sausage roll wreath with mulled wine cranberry sauce
• Sweet potato casserole topped with pecans
• Cherry salad

Christmas morning brunch bash for the baby's birthday

• Shrimp and grits
• Sausage gravy and biscuits
• Fruit with yogurt sauce
• Assorted juices, milk, coffee, and hot chocolate

There are some VERY nice menu's out there! Yum!

After the big party and big Thanksgiving dinner...I'm just grilling salmon. Potato wedges and lemon bars for dessert. It's just the two of us....the good company is what matters. :0)

Fun2BHere, I was surprised when my sister accepted my invitation because I thought that she would have other plans. It's a bit sad that her husband's family did not think to include her. I did know that she wanted to visit Palm Springs and also see what we have done to our house in Cathedral City, since she's only been there right after we bought it. At that time, we had only redone the pool and not the bathrooms, which were next on our list. So, the house is going to look very different to her! She is very nosy and curious about these things. She used to visit us once a year, and so maybe this will happen again, now that she is able to travel more on her own.

So sorry to hear that your father is still having to recuperate, and this must be very difficult for him, especially at this time of year. Is the rehabilitation facility close to you? I hope your father is a better patient than mine was.

Rob, your Christmas morning brunch sounds great! I especially like shrimp and grits, and I should make it more often. Maybe I can make it this year for Christmas also.

Right now still waiting on my kitchen cabinets to come in. The countertop people called me two days ago to check up on things and push back their December 17th date back a little bit to the end of next week. Cabinet guy told me before Christmas, so it may be the day before, who knows? Son is deployed so he had to cancel coming here, and would've had to stay at my daughter's apartment anyway. Daughter is planning on working Christmas day and I vaguely remember her saying she's having Christmas eve dinner with her father and his wife. So, will look at her schedule and probably just go out for a meal.

We were supposed to get together this evening and make some curry at her place. Then we were going to drive around looking at Christmas lights, maybe get some hot chocolate or coffee. I had to cancel because of this bug I have. Hopefully we can do it next week.

We go with a German menu because DH's mother was from there. We have sauerbraten with gravy, red cabbage, spaetzle noodles, veggie and rolls. For dessert we have chocolate linzer torte. DH will do it all from scratch. I always love the leftovers a few days later.

For Christmas Eve I'm making a bunch of appetizers and people can eat whenever they want.

Stuffed clams, mini quiche, crab puffs, spanakopita, pigs in blanket, veggie dumplings

For Christmas Day, Snow Crab Legs as appetizer then Beef Brasciole in homemade tomato sauce (already made and waiting in freezer) over long fuscilli, garlic bread, salad.

For dessert we'll crack open the tub of my cookies that I need to start baking.

amylou321, please, what's your way of making cabbage? I love cabbage but have only used it in salads. I want to try something new!

We;re having ribeyes which will be grilled by my 88-year-old father. Not sure about the sides yet. Do you share your olive bread recipe? Would love to try it!

@Lars, Thanks for the good thoughts. The rehab. is not far from my parent’s house in Texas, so once I arrive there, visiting him will be convenient. I’ll bet your sister will love all the changes you’ve made. How could she not appreciate such a colorful and cheerful place?

Christmas will be celebrated a bit differently for us this year. Usually, we have friends and family over for a 7 course wine dinner on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is usually immediate family for brunch and extended family for dinner.

This year our friends are busy, the in-laws are ill, and two nephews are in the midst of nasty divorces so it will be just me, DH, DD, DS and the grandchild for both Christmas Eve and Day.

Christmas Eve Menu is Prime Rib, potatoes of some sort and I haven’t figured the rest out yet.

Christmas Day, Brunch Menu is Maple Crème Brulé French Toast, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit, mimosas, etc. Late in the day we will do nibbles and desserts.

This Sunday we are hosting a Christmas cocktail party for our friends.

Menu is:

Lollipop Lamb Chops with blackberry dipping sauce

Mini Lobster Rockefeller pizzas

Charcuterie Board

Christmas Tree vegetable crudité

Foccacia bread and dipping oil

Greek chicken skewers

Mini Tourtieres

French Silk Pie Bites

Signature cocktail probably a rift on Kir Royale

White & Red Wines

Jupidupi, its just a simple way of cooking it, and NOT healthy. But it is really really good.

I start with frying some bacon (you were warned) just to render the fat out. The bacon itself is the cooks treat. For a medium cabbage I will use 3 or 4 strips. To the bacon fat I add a little butter, and I fry some onion in that. Then I add my cabbage, which I have cut into bite size squares. I cook the cabbage for a few minutes in the butter and bacon fat, then I cover it with chicken stock ,season with pepper, and simmer until it is done. How long depends on how soft or crunchy you like your cabbage. My SO likes it cooked a lot so I tend to cook it for a while, until all the stock is almost evaporated. The stock, onion and bacon fat give it a really lovely flavor.

Cookebook, Sure! The name is a little misleading because they are more like little olive toasties, not like a loaf of olive bread. But they are really popular among my family and are almost always the first to go, though not always. Anywho. I take about 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese and mix it with a cup of mayo, a small (4 oz) can of chopped black olives, 1/4-1/2 cup of chopped pimento stuffed green olives, an obscene amount of fresh garlic (well, not entirely, I use the pre minced "fresh" stuff in the jar or squeeze tube, but its perfect for these, as long as its not a puree) ,a little black pepper and a LOT of dried oregano. Of course the garlic, pepper and oregano can be adjusted to personal taste. Ideally I would let this mix sit overnight but if I cant its FINE. I spoon a heaping helping on top of slices of baguette and bake it at 375 until they are toasty and bubbly and DELICIOUS.

Wow, I'm impressed by some of your menus!

Lars, so nice of you to share Christmas with your sister. Hope she has a wonderful visit with you and Kevin.

It's just the two of us for Christmas. I typically make tiramisu for the holiday. Decided to make it an all Italian meal with lasagna, Caesar salad, and homemade bread.

Moosemac reminded me that I should also make focaccia. I already bought some special olive oil for that. I might want to bake the focaccia in the pizza oven. That's what I did for our party last March.

I made it to have with hummus, and so I might make that again as well.

Christmas day will be ham, green rice casserole, corn casserole, and rolls. I need to do something fresh also, suggestions? and pecan pie for dessert. My daughter does Christmas eve at her house. She always does tamales and Christmas cookies. What could I bring to add to tamales? Head count will be 5-8 people.

@ladypat1, how about a jicama and carrot slaw for a nice crunchy, fresh, acidic counterpoint to the tamales?

Still deciding. Just DH & I for dinner. Leaning towards tortellini with scallops in cream sauce with Caesar salad & tiramisso for dessert. Christmas brunch is our big family gathering, so it's relaxing to have dinner be low key with only the 2 of us.

I have no idea what is on the Christmas menu as I will be a guest. My extended family often disperses to other climes to celebrate the holidays so it is rare when we are all at home during this season......this is that rare year :-) But while we all be together in the same general area, we still do not all gather together on the big day. We are having an extended family gathering next Friday at SIL's condo for just drinks and finger food and to exchange any gifts. This will be potluck and I am contributing sausage rolls, mushroom tarts and smoked salmon spread with crackers.

My niece and nephew are hosting both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner but no previews on what will be served :-)) Family contributions are always appreciated but whatever might be the main course - prime rib, turkey, possibly ham (or maybe all 3!) - there will be lots of food.

As a single who is not into nor can afford a lot of gifting, I tend to find Christmas a bit over the top and overwhelming and chaotic. I am truly happiest when it is a very low key holiday I can spend mostly by myself. Or when we go as a family to Mexico as we have done several times (but not since the pandemic). No gifts except for the littles when that happens, just sand, sun and lots of good food and drink.

I often fix something at Christmas that is special to me - like a small prime rib so I can make Yorkshire pudding - but I am still unpacking and getting settled in from my recent move so maybe will skip until after the new year.

Fun2Bhere

Thanks for the idea! I looked up several recipes and I can do that from scratch. Pregnant daughter cant have bagged salad. Now Drs say avoid bagged salad, due to more chance of picking up Listeria poisoning. Thanks again.

For Christmas Eve, our traditional New Mexican dinner:

Tamales with my homemade Red Chile Sauce

Posole

Various appetizers including my Green Chile Rollups

Caesar Salad

great wines

And for dessert, Biscochito Cookies

Christmas Breakfast:

A frittata

our family's traditional homemade Coffee Cakes

coffee & eggnog

Vanilla Greek Yogurt

grapefruit halves (another tradition from my childhood)

Christmas Dinner:

Filet Mignon with a special sauce my DH makes

Wild Rice Pilaf

various appetizers

Roasted Asparagus

More great wines

Dessert: Winter-Spiced Molten Lava Cakes with Vanilla, Ginger Rum ice cream (another longtime family tradition via Bon Appetit Magazine many years ago). & Coffee

We do a nice dinner on the Eve and brunch on the Day. We have a turkey breast in the freezer from Thanksgiving (they were on sale) so perhaps we will have that; we usualy have a Danish pork roast or beef, maybe even beef bourgignon, so turkey will actually be a change of pace. And the sides, of course, similar to Thanksgiving unless I get inspired by some of the menus you all have given!

Christmas Day will be a brunch of eggs, croissants, bacon, unless we do breakfast sandwiches, in which case there will be ham instead of bacon, and of course fruit medley. mimosas. coffee.

Christmas Night is usually a quiet affair, a simple beef stew or leftovers but nicely served. One year we had tomato soup and grilled cheese, and anything served in the dining room with candlelight and A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack playing, is warm and cozy and holds the love of the season.

Our kerfuffle this year is that I have to play at church. and I’m supposed to be there at 3 but the service starts at 5, ends at 6:30. Often I beg off of this particular Xmas Eve service, but I felt obligated this year (I much prefer the midnight service). So, anything *I* am planning needs to be taken care of well in advance, with written instructions and a timeline posted. And while DH will do fine in some regards (cooking), he will need a co-host while I’m gone. We will have to think of who can do that best, who knows where everything is.

DH and I both grew up in families where one parent’s tradition is the Eve, and the other is the Day. When we got married and had little children, it was much easier to to host the Day at our house, and it quickly became Brunch.

We used to host extended family on the Eve and I would have to leave about 9:30 to get to church for the late service. It was great because when people would clean up when I left, and I’d get home after midnight to a tidied house, dishwasher humming, and I’d enjoy a bedtime sip of wine or Bailey’s, with quiet carols by the tree.

I think I am inviting myself to Lynn's:-)) A New Mexico Christmas with that menu sounds marvelous!!

I will be cooking a formal sit down dinner for eight. Menu includes, pork loin roast, cider butter sauce (Joy of Cooking), applesauce, twice baked potatoes, Waldorf salad, pumpkin bread, cranberry bread, mincemeat peach halves, a vegetable, meringues with lemon curd sauce, wine and chanpagne.

Congratulations, Neely, on the future addition to the family!

Lars, I hope you have a nice visit with your sister, and she's going to love your renovations, you have such a wonderful knack for decorating and using color. ANything you cook will be delicious, I'm sure.

Colleen, you're going to be just worn out by the time you are done with all that, take care of yourself.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Amylou, you are always so good to help out your family with the cooking, I think I'd pretend to not be able to cook just to be able to eat yours!

Here we are having Christmas the day after Christmas so that the Princess can get off work. I spent the afternoon making homemade pappardelle and sheet trays of it are freezing now, it'll get sauced with a cream sauce full of mushrooms, red peppers and cream with some parmesan and Italian sausage. We're also having tenderloin, glazed ham, some gluten free pasta for Amanda that got made yesterday and frozen, sauce to be determined. Pane Bianco to go with the pasta and mashed potatoes and gravy to go with the tenderloin. Pao de Queijo for Amanda and anyone else that wants it, it's gluten free. Vegetable still to be determined. Dessert will be Tiramisu and maybe a repeat of Thanksgivings' Tres Leches Pumpkin Flan, a cream cheese poundcake with fruit sauce and cookies and fudge.

Elery and I will be alone on Christmas Day, but I'll be cooking for the next day and that'll keep me busy. I do have some shrimp that we will have for supper, but now Cioppino sounds good....

Annie

Lars - I'm so glad that your sister is joining the two of you for Christmas. It will be nice for the three of you to be together. Enjoy!

We don't do big family gatherings on Christmas anymore as they just got unwieldy when cousins and nieces and nephews got married and had their own families.

We will get together for brunch with our two sons, their partners and our two new grandchildren on the 23rd, One of our DIL's parents are divorced and that creates stressful issues for Christmas Eve and Day so we stay out of it. Christmas dinner is with our younger son and family and this year I ordered dinner from Whole Foods and my son will order in Chinese food. It's just so much easier.

Nothing special here, no festive foods or sweets since I can't eat them and my cousin doesn't eat any sweets so pretty boring here. I am having a spiral ham so there will be left over meat for the freezer and when my brother comes home and my cousin is having one of those football hams with no nitrates. I want it all though, the homemade fruitcake, the cookies, the butter tarts, stuffing, candy canes, egg nog, Clementines, the Bailey's but I am determined to get these last 25 pounds off of my body.

This is the first of our 45 years together that we haven't put up a tree or made any effort to celebrate. It's 59° with gale force winds and heavy rain. Our friends and family are distant and dropping like flies. It's difficult to get into any kind of fuzzy holiday mood. Hope I have a better view of things after a good night of sleep.

(((Seagrass)))

Maybe you can find a few treats to share, a sweet little decoration to lift the spirits, and some pretty music. You can have a nice shared evening without doing it up big.

Thanks Islay for the wonderful expression "aperitif dinatoire". That's new vocab for me.

As to Christmas menus.... I have no idea. I'll be in Rome and other people are feeding me.😁 But I will be taking a homemade Christmas pudding and brandy butter with me. It goes down very well with the family, especially the part where we set it alight!

Next Christmas it's our turn to host the Italians and there'll be a nine month old grandchild, so that should be a lot of fun and excitable flapping.

I’m wondering how everyone’s festive Christmas food went.

Mine not so good… DIL had a Braxton Hicks episode or some sort of weird pain (8 months pregnant) With all the fuss about that I forgot about the beans and the gravy and it wasn’t till I smelt ’burning’ that I remembered. So we ended up having frozen peas and packet gravy but really no one minded.

Also the Yule log looked strange but tasted OK.

There’s been some wild weather everywhere it seems, so I hope everyone had a safe and delicious Christmas.

We had splendid weather! I hope all, and extra for those who did not, are safe. The Christmas cousins are good cooks and asked me to bring nothing, not wanting more in their small kitchen. I obliged. An out of towner cousin made pies. They were both very soft, a lime curd pie and a chocolate silk, but they were good, so it's okay that I didn't get to make pie, like pear/cranberry with pistacchio crust. I have another weird leg injury, so I didn't even make the hazelnut cookies. It was a really pleasant evening. Everybody was nice and well behaved. Peaceful. As it should be.

My little scallop pastries went down a treat. The cheat guinea fowl was delicious, and the rest fine. All for very little effort. Looking forward to the new year celebrations now!

I managed to do everything I planned to do despite having a bad reaction to the latest round of chemo on the 20th. We went back to our home in the country and I was feeling relatively OK the next day so I did some prep for cooking, making the sausagemeat stuffing for the turkey and freezing it.

I had made pumpkin pies and brownies before we went down to the city for the treatment and put them into the freezer in our unit there. I was glad that I did as I felt dreadful on the Friday and Saturday. I was a little better on the Saturday so I continued with prepping, chopping bread cubes and celery and onions etc for the bread stuffing, then we had to pack it all up and head down to the city again as DD and her little family were arriving at the airport in the early evening.

We were lending them DH’s car so at least he had to be there. It was touch and go as to whether I would be up to driving my car down (as opposed to DH’s sister bringing him back to the country and then him driving both of us in my car) but through sheer stubbornness I made it :-).

Sunday morning I felt almost human again so I put the ham I had pre-studded with cloves into the oven and basted it with a mix of orange juice, cranberry sauce, honey and mustard at regular intervals. It turned out delicious and moist :-) As it happened I didn’t need to bring salads so I made the cheesecake I had planned to make and that was me done for the day. We took the ham and the desserts and all our presents to my BIL’s place and had a great evening with the whole extended family and then divvied up leftovers. I gave away a fair amount of ham, which was fine with me as I had bought a large one just for the purpose.

Christmas morning I made the bread stuffing then stuffed the turkey buffe with it then sealed it in with the sausagemeat stuffing. We took that, the remaining ham and a pumpkin pie to the holiday apartment where DD is staying. Her DH made waffles with fresh fruit and maple syrup for brunch, then we played with DGS and opened presents while the turkey roasted along with the potatoes. After a while DD made an appetiser of brie wedges coated in panko and fried, along with cranberry sauce and rocket salad. Then we had the turkey, ham, green beans with prosciutto, roasted Dutch carrots, cauliflower cheese, hasselback potatoes, bread sauce and gravy and big puffy mini Yorkshire puddings (made by DSIL), followed by pumpkin pie at a decent interval. It was a lovely low key day and we had a great time with DD, DSIL and DGS, who is the most delightful baby 🥰

Just for fun the daughters made Beef Wellington for us. SUPERB! It was a happy blessed Christmas day. Yesterday the rest of our family showed up and again DH did a great job with the steaks and lobster on the grill.