Christmas Food Traditions!

[AmateisGal]

I am one of very few who actually like fruitcake. I know. I know.

I don't know that I've ever actually tried fruit cake. I suppose I've been influenced by its poor reputation!

 

[AmateisGal]

lol. c'mon over! there are also kaluha balls and wine cake.

this place makes us all a bunch o' boozers. lol lol lol

Ohhh - we had a ton of office goodies all week. Our clients send us baskets of stuff, and then employees bring in treats they made at home. 'Tis not the season to try and watch the weight!

Can't say as we've had any alcohol, though. I could have used a bit of champagne this dreary afternoon.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

I have eaten cheese ball on crackers for my lunch today....followed by 'gift cookies' as dessert.....

so healthy...but i am on a deadline and today is the last day of work before the new year....so not wanting to waste time on lunch hour

 

[zaika]

I don't know that I've ever actually tried fruit cake. I suppose I've been influenced by its poor reputation!

when it's fresh, fruitcake can be reeeeally good. honestly, aside from the cheap, cardboard crap they sell at huge chainstores, i don't see what's so bad about fruitcake. especially when rum is involved....

Ohhh - we had a ton of office goodies all week. Our clients send us baskets of stuff, and then employees bring in treats they made at home. 'Tis not the season to try and watch the weight!

Can't say as we've had any alcohol, though. I could have used a bit of champagne this dreary afternoon.

yeah, i pretty much gave up trying so hard to say no. [huh] and no alcohol here...just large "hints" of it in our goodies. lol

 

[Josephine]

For Xmas Eve we have cold cuts on rolls, and shrimp with cocktail sauce, pickled herring 'cause I LOVE IT SO and some kind of appetizer (artichoke dip for the MIL or Spinach Dip for the kids), and then Xmas cookies. I make the kind I posted in the Xmas Cookie exchange thread. We watch an Xmas movie or the like, and maybe open one present. That's a holdover from when my mom was a girl, all sisters/brothers (mom's aunts/uncles/her mom) would get together and exchange gifts. Then we send the kids to bed and fill stockings.

Xmas morning we get up around the same time, I make cinnamon rolls that we eat while opening presents that tide us over until after presents and MIL makes breakfast, God bless her; blueberry pancakes and sausage and BACON! and toast, etc. Then after breakfast and during clean up and attempts to figure out the logistics of cooking Xmas dinner, the girls open stockings.

Xmas dinner this year is a ham from FIL, God bless him, and we'll have a few of the same things we had for TGiving. Broccoli casserole, carrot souffle, corn souffle, mashed potatoes, rolls. Dessert will be pumpkin pie, grasshopper pie, and Big Miss asked for Boston Creme pie this year. Grasshopper pie is a tradition as I don't like pumpkin pie. Oh, and I think I will make Jansson's Temptation for myself as I LOVE IT SO.

I'd like to have more traditions; SIL is German so my brother's family does many things on Xmas Eve. Hubby is about 75% German from all his relatives, I should figure out some German things to do. I really want to try Christmas Crackers and wear a paper crown. We're part English so I can!

 

[Mid-fogey]

Generally....

...eating and drinking to insensibility, then laying on the floor and groaning.

 

[Brad Bowers]

These traditions go back years in my family, and I've continued them:

For Christmas Eve, we always have a La Posada feast, with some combination of adobada or bean burritos, enchiladas, or chimichangas smothered in hot green chile.

Christmas morning, we whip up a big German pancake with blueberry compote.

For Christmas Day, I've actually started my own tradition of a standing rib roast and Yorkshire Pudding. We always used to have turkey when I was a kid, but once a year is enough for me on the turkey.lol

Okay, I'm salivating now.

Brad

 

[Josephine]

For Christmas Day, I've actually started my own tradition of a standing rib roast ...

I'd love to make a crown roast with stuffing in the middle for Christmas each year, but the cost of the meat!

 

[Mike in Seattle]

I haven't for the last three years because we were out of town the first two, last year we went to friends. But normally, I do the standing rib roast for Christmas, usually on a big platter surrounded by spice crabapples, with outrageously lethal horseradish (a tamed down cream horseradish sauce for those not wishing their sinuses seared); some sort of potatoes (sometimes au gratin, sometimes garlic mashed, sometimes scalloped); a big salad with pear chunks & Stilton or gorgonzola crumbles & candied pecans & craisins & Balsamic viniagrette; a couple kinds of vegetables (green beans with bacon & onion, creamed onions, broiled tomatoes, or baby peas); a couple pies plus we've done the flambed plum pudding a few times (good & pretty easy to make, actually) and a buche noel once or twice.

 

[Smithy]

when it's fresh, fruitcake can be reeeeally good

Actually Zaika the traditional British style Christmas fruit cake is usually made at least a month before Christmas as you "feed" the cake brandy whilst it's storing. My grandmother who made a magnificent cake used to make it a couple of months before Chrissy and my Mum used to make her one around a month or so before.

 

[pgoat]

lol. c'mon over! there are also kaluha balls and wine cake.

this place makes us all a bunch o' boozers. lol lol lol

dang! You're in Portland too......We are looking into moving there....save me a rum ball!

 

[Miss Crisplock]

THAT'S the name! Stan Boreson. I asked several people last night. "You know - that Norwegian comedian that had a show and was a Seattle institution like J.P. Patches!"

And Duffy's a good friend of a friend of ours. I seem to arrive at her parties right after Duffy leaves, or have to leave just before Duffy arrives.

And his dog, (Basset Hound) Slo-Mo - - - like the hydroplanes - the Slo-Mo-Shun (I, II, II, etc.)

Zero Dockas, Mucho Crakus, Halabaluzibub.....


Oh man, now I'm getting homesick...

BTW, LOVE fruitcake! My Grandma made great fruitcake.

 

[Jovan]

Being Quebecois, we usually make tourti?©re, a Canadian pork pie. Delicious. I need to get the ingredients tomorrow.

 

[Spitfire]

Danish Christmas

Since nobody has described the Danish / Nordic traditions let me try:

In Denmark Christmas is the biggest familything - almost like the American Thanksgiving.
As some of you might know, we celebrate it in the evening of the 24th of December.
The food we get is also very traditional and goes back to a time with hard, physical labour.
In the old days you started out with a large portion of porridge made from rice, with a lump of butter in the middle and cinnamon over.
After that came the roasted pork or duck. Only the superrich got roasted goose.

Today it’s changed a bit. A traditional Danish Christmas dinner is:
Roasted pork side and/or roasted duck. Together with boiled red cabbage, potatoes and sugar roasted potatoes. After that we have “Ris Alamande” a French spin-off of the old rice porridge.
It is still rice porridge, but it is mixed up with lots of chopped almonds, vanilla and whipped cream.
Traditionally there is one whole almond in the Ris Alamande – whoever gets that, wins a present.

After the meal, we light the candles on the natural Christmas tree (no plastic or electric lights here!) join hands and walks/dances around the tree singing Christmas carols and -hymns. And the we all have our presents.

The next day most people sleep late in order to get ready for the big, traditional Christmas Days Lunch.
Every family has their own tradition and favourites. But mostly it’s something like:
Lots of different pickled herrings (raw marinated), smoked salmon, different cold cuts, warm liver paste with bacon, different spicy sausages, warm meatballs and cheese.
Everything eaten on dark rye bread or white bread.

And just to be sure - in some families the lunch is repeated on the second day of Christmas as well...same procedure as the day before.
To that lots of beer and snaps (aquavit).

Merry Christmas – or as we say: Glædelig jul!:cheers1:

 

[scotrace]

I'd love to make a crown roast with stuffing in the middle for Christmas each year, but the cost of the meat!

One of the reasons we went with it last year was the cost. I had to serve 16, and I got a full pork crown roast for under $25. It was the cheapest of the options.
Many grocers have sales in these last few days before Christmas, and after all, it's just a bunch of un-cut pork chops!

And you know, I'mOldFashioned... it's you New Englanders who taught us out here on the frontier how to be frugal! lol

 

[pgoat]

Since nobody has described the Danish / Nordic traditions let me try:

In Denmark Christmas is the biggest familything - almost like the American Thanksgiving.
As some of you might know, we celebrate it in the evening of the 24th of December.
The food we get is also very traditional and goes back to a time with hard, physical labour.
In the old days you started out with a large portion of porridge made from rice, with a lump of butter in the middle and cinnamon over.
After that came the roasted pork or duck. Only the superrich got roasted goose.

Today it’s changed a bit. A traditional Danish Christmas dinner is:
Roasted pork side and/or roasted duck. Together with boiled red cabbage, potatoes and sugar roasted potatoes. After that we have “Ris Alamande” a French spin-off of the old rice porridge.
It is still rice porridge, but it is mixed up with lots of chopped almonds, vanilla and whipped cream.
Traditionally there is one whole almond in the Ris Alamande – whoever gets that, wins a present.

After the meal, we light the candles on the natural Christmas tree (no plastic or electric lights here!) join hands and walks/dances around the tree singing Christmas carols and -hymns. And the we all have our presents.

The next day most people sleep late in order to get ready for the big, traditional Christmas Days Lunch.
Every family has their own tradition and favourites. But mostly it’s something like:
Lots of different pickled herrings (raw marinated), smoked salmon, different cold cuts, warm liver paste with bacon, different spicy sausages, warm meatballs and cheese.
Everything eaten on dark rye bread or white bread.

And just to be sure - in some families the lunch is repeated on the second day of Christmas as well...same procedure as the day before.
To that lots of beer and snaps (aquavit).

Merry Christmas – or as we say: Glædelig jul!:cheers1:

That all sounds lovely! Very 'Kris Kringle' authentic; certainly beats sloshing around city streets..... Happy Holidays!

 

[Flieger]

Since nobody has described the Danish / Nordic traditions let me try:

Hey Spitfire! What Am I? Chopped liver?
(I guess you didn't see my post)

GOD JUL!

//F

 

[Helen Troy]

Actually Zaika the traditional British style Christmas fruit cake is usually made at least a month before Christmas as you "feed" the cake brandy whilst it's storing. My grandmother who made a magnificent cake used to make it a couple of months before Chrissy and my Mum used to make her one around a month or so before.

My parents made two large british style fruit cakes one year, a couple of months before Christmas, and put them in the basement to "mature". But when Cristmas came, we could only find one of them, which was delicious. A year or two later, we re-discovered the second cake, and that was wonderfull! Really, really tasty.

Fun to see how many of you who eat something Scandinavian in origins. And, if anyone of you have to eat Lutefisk, here's my advice: All Norwegians know that the whole point of Lutefisk is the side-dishes! (Bacon, mushy peas and such.) The fish itself is just....strange.

In my family we eat reindeer, as I said, and that is only traditional to my family. (Not typical Norwegian.) Before dinner, we go to the graveyard and put lanterns on my grandparents graves. Many people light candles on their loved one's graves, so the graveyard is so beautiful in the dark.

Then it's dinner, and we start with listening to the Jule-evangeliet, (Christmas Gospel, Lukas' description of the birth of Jesus), read by one of the family. Everybody dresses up for dinner, like you would do for a nice dinner party.

After dinner we do the joining of hands, and walking around the tree singing hymns and Cristmas songs. After that, we open the presents, which are kept under the tree.

The next day, (25th) we eat pinnekjoett, (smoked, salted and dried lamb), at my Grandmothers. This is also a day we dress nice, no jammies allowed!

I really love my families Christmas tradtitions. (Of which this was only a brief summary. We have many more, but I won't bore you any longer! )And now I can hardly wait for Christmas Eve. This year, I even have a brand new nephew (my first!) to celebrate with!

God Jul, everybody!

 

[Lola Getz]

If we are spending Christmas Eve at home, I make assorted grinders and we eat them while watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" We are each allowed to open one gift.

If we spend the eve with my in-laws, who are Cuban, it involves a very late La Navidad dinner: lots of roast pork, yuca with garlic suace and Sangria. When I first married into the family, I feared the poor pig would be whole and roasted on a spit in the backyard (too many horror stories!) but thankfully, they lived in a condo complex that frowned upon that sort of display!

 

[Spitfire]

Hey Spitfire! What Am I? Chopped liver?
(I guess you didn't see my post)

GOD JUL!

//F

Sorry Flieger. No I did not - till now that is. (My god you swedes eat more than we do!)
But my description was of a very danish christmas anyway. So I guesse no harm done...
God jul til dig også.