For Christmas, we have ham (usually country ham); we typically have some turkey as well, but ham is the main meat.

Along with ham, the required dishes are:

scalloped oysters (same as AOIIsilver)

dressing (what people in more northern and western parts of the country may call "stuffing," but in the South, we don't "stuff" meat, we "dress" it ;))

baked asparagus

For dessert, there are usually lots of different cookies, cakes, etc. (many of which are presents from neighbors), but the essential, centerpiece dessert is ambrosia -- everything else is to go with the ambrosia, not replace it.

mystic cat we also do ambrosia-navel oranges, sectioned, juice squeezed into bowl, banana slices, flaked coconut, maraschino cherry halves and pecan pieces. is yours like that?it truly lives up to its name!!

for t-giving it is turkey-dressing-cranberry sauce,many veggies, many desserts, assorted salads,ambrosia. t-giving is always with my mothers family-the four sisters,their children and the grandchildren. it is a mob, but i love it.

for christmas, we serve a honey baked ham, rosemary potato/sweet potato dish, a vegetable, baked pineapple cassarole(good enough to be dessert!),ambrosia and a dessert.

new years-black-eyed peas, rice, greens of some kind(mustard, collards or turnips) cornbread.

Our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are usually the same. Turkey, brisket, stuffing, salads, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin and pecan pies.

This year we will be incorporating some korean foods into our Thanksgiving dinner as my boyfriend's sister and husband will be joining us for dinner. His brother-in-law is Korean, so we will be having some Korean meat and rice along w/the traditional Thanksgiving feast!

I think I'll pass on the ham this year and just invite myself over to all of your homes this year!! :) Some of your menus sound great!

Similar, but simpler. Just citrus fruits and coconut, with maybe just a touch of banana.

And yes, black-eyed peas and greens are a necessity on New Year's.

This is single greatest post ever in the history of everything since right after the big bang.

At my parents house we usually have ham. At the in-laws we usually have chicken wings and finger foods! I prefer the chicken wings because I'm not a big fan of ham.

Everytime I think about (or eat) ambrosia, I think of Rush. One year, we decided that, since all the other sororities were having very rich desserts, we went the other way with ambrosia & green salad. I love it!!

We used to have turkey for Thanksgiving, Beef/Beast for Christmas (a la Grinch), and Ham for Easter. All bets are off now, except the Thanksgiving turkey, along with dressing, yams, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry salad, rolls, and assorted salads.

Of Course, one has black eyed peas or Hoppin John on New Year's, along with pork.

Big Thanksgiving food questions:

1) Dressing: Do you prefer yours IN the bird, or OUT of the bird? White bread or Corn Bread? With or Without "goodies" (Oysters, Other Meat, etc)?

2) Cranberries: Whole or the Jellied Can?

OUT the bird! White bread (rolls). Other than turkey, we have ham.

I like whole cranberry sauce, but my family is stuck on the jellied kind.

Out of the bird, Corn bread, no "goodies", jellied cranberries.

Thanksgiving -
Main Course: Smoked Turkey, Dressing, Gravy, Green Beans, Squash Casserole, Mashed Potatoes, Creamed Corn, Rolls
Dessert - Green Salad, Pecan Pie, Blueberry Yum-Yum, Cakes, and Cookies

Christmas -
Main Course: Smokes Turkey and Spiral Slices Ham (because I refuse to eat ham), Dressing, Gravy, Potato Salad, Green Beans, Squash Casserole, Corn, and Rolls
Dessert - Ambrosia (oranges, juices, coconut, peacans, cherries, & apples), Green Salad, more Yum-Yum, Cakes and Cookies



1) Dressing in my family is always a cornbread dressing baked outside of the bird and a modified gibblet gravy - no actual inards, only turkey or chicken meat and a hard boilded egg.

2) Jellied can - just plop it onto the plate and serve

We're turkey people. Ham is for heathens.

I've always been afraid of trichinosis.

BTW, Cooking stuffing inside the bird is ASKING for food poisining. Take a microbiology class. You'll never again eat stuffing that was cooked inside a bird. Its rare the the center part of the stuffing gets above 165 degrees. (the temp where most bacteria die). Had a professor tell me once (in the micro class) that you could kill your entire family by picking your nose, wiping the booger inside the stuffing inside the bird. The bacteria would incubate in there and would be so numerous they coudl kill an entire family.

Yeah, I never ate in the bird stuffing again. Neither should you.

we have three pans of dressing-one is oyster, one is regular, one is sausage(ground spicy sausage-jimmy dean) all corn bread based. we do not stuff the bird, except for onion and celery in the cavity to add flavor.

jellied cranberry sauce

Out, cornbread, no "goodies."

Quote:

2) Cranberries: Whole or the Jellied Can?

Neither. We usually have a cranberry salad of some kind. And I'll admit it -- I love Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish that Susan Stamberg features every year on Morning Edition. Horseradish just makes everything taste better.

The reason I asked my dressing question is because we may as many as four different dressings at each Thanksgiving - and everyone tries to "convert" the others to their line of thinking. We have:

1) In the bird
2) Out of the bird
3) Cornbread & Sausage
4) Stuffings Balls (that always sounds so gross to me!)

I'm an out of the bird and/or cornbread dressing person - I LOVE the cornbread, but it's so rich, I only eat a little. But I could never, ever eat the dressing from in the bird - even if it was cornbread!

As for cranberries, we've gone from the gelled to the berries. It's really a yummy difference! At times, we dress it up by making a cranberry salad, but again, there's still those who "need" the gelled style.