Christmas dinner
 

For those of you who celebrate Christmas, do you generally have turkey, ham, or something else for your big meal that day? My husband and I are having a major disagreement about what most people have on Christmas! :)

In my household, what we have for Thanksgiving is generally what we also have for Christmas. Turkey/ham and everything that goes with it.

Though I did grow up with someone for whom a big spaghetti dinner was the norm for Christmas.

We usually have ham at our dinners. So yummy...

Fried country ham, baked "Co-cola" Ham, and scalloped oysters.
Oysters are VERY traditional in our area...
Silver

Well, for Christmas we usually go by my husbands families house and have the same old, same old: turkey with all the fixings.

My family on the other hand is Italian and in the Italian tradition Christmas Eve is more important. While the true Italian tradition is that you should only have fish on Christmas Eve, we veer away from that.

On Christmas Eve my great aunt takes us all out for dinner (usually between 15-20 of us). Our appitizers are all fish: clams (raw and baked), calamari, oster rockerfeller, shrimp (fresh and fried), and crab legs. Then we have salad followed by some kind of pasta. For the main course we usually have chicken, roast beef, green beans, and potatos. Then for dessert all the aunts and cousins bring in homemade Italian cookies (yummy!). To me our Christmas Eve dinner is bigger then our Thanksgiving dinner. By the end of the night we are all stuffed!!

The Christian part of my family has goose every year.

We go out for Christmas dinner. We have been pretty much every year for about the last 8 years. (There was one year we stayed in b/c I was really ill).

We go to a very nice restaurant in downtown Annapolis that overlooks the water. They have a huge buffet. It's great and this year we're recruiting our family friends to come too.


We don't have family nearby anymore, so it's normally just the 4 of us.

It varys from year to year. Sometimes we have turkey, sometimes we have ham, sometimes we have roast beef and sometimes we have leftovers from our Christmas Eve dinner the night before (soups). If we have a big meal, we also have mashed potatoes, scalloped corn, green bean casserole, etc...

When I went back to my parents, it was generally pork or ham. Now that I celebrate with my wife, it changes from year to year.

I wish I knew! The last time my sister-in-law came for a holiday, she brought her own chicken. I'm thinking of buying Happy Meals for everyone this year - CHICKEN MCNUGGET Happy Meals.

That would be so awesome.

(I am very easy to please.)

ETA: That was my 3,000th post!!!!!

Turkey, Ham, Chicken and Dumplings, Dressing, Green Beans and Ham Hock, Mashed Potatoes, Macaroni and Cheese, etc.

However, Oysters are not part of the cuisine in our part of Tennessee. Nutbrnhair, do you live in West TN by the river?

And I'm honored that you used it to answer my post!! Want a McNugget?

My mom makes pork roast for the meat-eating members of my family (when I used to eat meat (other than poultry/seafood), she'd make ham for me), while her and I usually fill up on mashed potatoes, salad, and the other fixings that we make for the meal :)

Everyone in my family is Catholic except me - I converted to Judaism a few years ago. We spend Christmas with my folks, as my husband's family is mostly Jewish.

Christmas Eve dinner is always non-meat. When I was growing up, that usually meant pasta, as my father refused to eat fish. He has finally grown up :rolleyes: so now my parents have fish for Christmas Eve dinner.

Christmas dinner was usually ham when I was growing up. Ham, mashed potatoes, green beans (ick), and maybe another veggie such as squash. Dessert was always fruitcake, which my mother flamed when she served it. The presentation was very nice, but fruitcake is disgusting! You end up with pieces of fruit stuck in your teeth for days. :rolleyes:

Now that I'm Jewish and I don't eat pork, Christmas dinner is usually chicken or turkey, potatoes, and a veggie. Dessert is fruit or ice cream - I've finally convinced my folks that neither my husband nor I have the cast-iron esophagus and stomach required for fruitcake.