Christmas Traditions

Do you guys have any Christmas meal traditions?

Growing up, Mom and Dad always did prime rib and twice-baked potatoes on Christmas eve. My wife’s mom always did steaks and lobster tails on Christmas eve.

With a family of our own, now, we began our own tradition several years ago. We go to Christmas eve mass and follow it up with our “Christmas Eve Crab Fest”. Piles of snow crab legs with clarified butter–yum. Twice-baked potatoes on the side. Our three-year old has been telling people about the crab since Thanksgiving.

I’m going to take a stab at mulled wine this year, so that might get added to the tradition, too. The traditional drink at Mom and Dad’s is Tom and Jerry’s–homemade, of course.

We started when the kids were young cooking Cornish hens stuffed with a wild rice and slivered almond stuffing. Now the kids are in their 30’s and they still say its not Christmas if we don’t have hens.

Cheers everyone have a safe and joyous holiday season

johnnyb wrote:

We started when the kids were young cooking Cornish hens stuffed with a wild rice and slivered almond stuffing.

Sounds great!

My wife makes a pot roast and homemade noodles that get cooked in the pan juices, it’s an old family recipe that is out of this world! Then I make oyster stew after we open presents. Ann also makes a from scratch German chocolate cake that is pretty decadent.

Merry Christmas everyone!

We always get Tiger Meat aound Christmas time. For those of you that dont know what it is, its seasoned raw beef on a cracker. Something you have to grow up on.

We are doing a seafood boil this year with shrimp, mussels, crab, and crayfish. Throw in corn and baby red potatoes, boil and dump it all out on the table.

Might be the best Xmas dinner ever, we’ll see!

dfresh wrote:

We are doing a seafood boil this year with shrimp, mussels, crab, and crayfish. Throw in corn and baby red potatoes, boil and dump it all out on the table.

Excellent! We did one at the cabin this summer. My son is now obsessed with crayfish. I didn’t think he’d even try one, yet I think he ate more than anyone there!

(for what it’s worth, while the corn and potatoes probably add some flavor, forget that and just give me the seafood! )

Steaks and Lamb Chops on the grill Christmas Day.

When we went to my grandparents, it was chicken gravy over homemade biscuits. It was the best. The last few years my mom has been making a gruyere cheese based cream sauce that we put over shrimp, scallops and some sort of fish. Pretty tasty as well.

The food varies at my family’s gatherings, but ham is usually involved. Of course I always make about 1,000 cookies around Christmas. My festiveness is nauseating – I wear an apron and dance/sing in my kitchen to Christmas music while I bake cookies! I just made about 12 dozen over the weekend. My favorite are peanut blossoms, so I make those every year.

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Sharon wrote:

My favorite are peanut blossoms…

X2 on that! My folks usually go way overboard on the homemade treats, too. Not that I am complaining.

Feel free to share some of those with me, Sharon!

DON’T EAT THE COOKIES

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Ryan – I’m thinking of making my kitchen into a cookie bakery! Dougie – OMG! That would look even worse with my Red Velvet Peanut Blossoms! Hahaha!

Burgers on the grill! So what if it’s cold and snowing.

I kid you not, the traditional Bohemian Christmas Dinner is–wait for it–a seasoned carp. No. Really. Do not adjust your radio.

To this day, if you go to the Czech Republic, you will find Christmas markets and every so often you will see a stall with big canvas tanks and they are selling live carp for the traditional Christmas dinner.

My great grandmother kept this tradition alive, in Minnesota, because she just knew that the rest of the family would be crushed if she were to break tradition. Until, in the 1970s, she said to my grandma, “It’s getting hard to find the carp for Christmas.”

And my grandma replied, “Well good, nobody likes that carp anyway. Let’s have something else.”

Great grandma couldn’t believe it. She went all around the room, “Edvard, you love the carp don’t you?”

“Hell no. The peasants back home can have it. We have better things to eat now.”

“Mikel, you love the carp, don’t you?”

“No Grandma, it’s an awful fish.”

“Tomas?”

“No Grandma. I give mine to Rover when no one is looking.”

And so it went all around the room.

“Well good! I’ve always hated that damn carp too.” We have had a sirloin roast or ham ever since.

Grouse

I usually end up working on Chtistmas so I probably have the traditional “Jacks” pizza. Mmmm!
DT

our family loves to get out the fondue pot. We do the hot peanut oil and I’ll have cubed chicken and shrimp breaded, steak cubed up, and small dish of beer batter to batter the veggies and a large assortment of dips and sauces. The kids always look forward to this, so do I. At my parents we are all traditional Swedish, with lefse, Swedish sausage and meatballs, even lutefisk! There’s a bunch on the table the kids really like and a few things they don’t care for, but the tradition also is that the kids need to do all the dishes before opening gifts.

Oyster stew on Christmas Eve as long as I can remember.

Steve Root wrote:

Burgers on the grill! So what if it’s cold and snowing.

I love it when we grill burgers for Christmas! Makes the whole neighborhood jealous.

Squirrel Pot Pie, yes you read that right, tree rats for Christmas. My two daughters grew up eating all kinds of wild game. We dined on most everything gleaned fresh from the land and trap line. One of their favorite dishes was squirrel pot pie so it became our family Christmas dish. This year two pies were made along with two choices of soup for a side dish. Everyone there, including the in-laws, had a slice of the squirrel pot pie.

My daughters always got a kick out of bringing college friends home with them for the weekend. Meal time was, shall we say, a “learning” experience for most of their friends. I think we even converted a few.

For years it was a venison roast and pork roast cooked together.

Grouse, smoked carp is very good. There are carp farms here in MN that sell them to many resturants in New York.

When we were kids, Mom and Dad were broke as all get out. One year on Christmas morning, they couldn’t find anything decent so served us cinnamon rolls and grape juice-pretty much what they found in the back of the freezer. They felt awful, and the next year made sure to be stocked better…and we all threw a fit because there weren’t any cinnamon rolls and grape juice!
Instant tradition, we’ve had it every year since. Have same in my own fridge now for my kids.

Funny, most of my siblings and I favorite memories are of the things that horrify my parents. You never know what’s going to make a good memory…

stuart wrote:

Oyster stew on Christmas Eve as long as I can remember.

X2 on most years since the fateful grape juice year!

Oyster Stew, Tiger Meat, Prime Rib on my wife’s side… Big dinners changed to a night of appetizers at my parents home, in fact one of my FSIL’s who didn’t like fish thought the pickled northern was fantastic pickled cauliflower… Last year my bro made smoked pheasant pate which we spread over crackers, it was outstanding!!!

Mark

Huntindave wrote:

My daughters always got a kick out of bringing college friends home with them for the weekend. Meal time was, shall we say, a “learning” experience for most of their friends. I think we even converted a few.

Not long ago my teenage daughters friend asked at our supper table, “Was the meat ‘ethically’ killed?” Me: “Oh yes. Dropped like a stone at 80 yds, barely even twitched.” My wife says I’m evil.

The grandkids are lathering right now waiting on my jerky. For the table on Christmas I make my “Fish Eyes” tapioca. I have a recipe that has been tweaked and adjusted over the years and when the cover comes off the bowl on Christmas it is usually the first dish to empty. And that’s a double batch. Its putzy to make and I have to start it a day earlier than I make it but its oh so worth it.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

The grandkids are lathering right now waiting on my jerky. For the table on Christmas I make my “Fish Eyes” tapioca. I have a recipe that has been tweaked and adjusted over the years and when the cover comes off the bowl on Christmas it is usually the first dish to empty. And that’s a double batch. Its putzy to make and I have to start it a day earlier than I make it but its oh so worth it.

Sorry for the quick hijack,but it is Christmas related.

Michaels restaurant in Rochester is closing. We had Christmas dinner there when I was at the Mayo Clinic. Lots of celebrity photos when they get treated there.
Great place to eat! Sad to see it close.

dfresh wrote:

We are doing a seafood boil this year with shrimp, mussels, crab, and crayfish. Throw in corn and baby red potatoes, boil and dump it all out on the table.

Might be the best Xmas dinner ever, we’ll see!

Doug what is your address and what time is the boil to be served ?

Our dinner tonight. Yum!

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