To think it’s weird millions of people eat the same dishes on one day of the year?

According to Radio 4 yesterday on 52%of people have Turkey now. with chicken, beef and lamb roasts taking over.

When I was a TEFL teacher, i remember one of my students from I think Thailand ( but it could be somewhere else in Asia) asking me after class, if she could talk to me about her host family. She didn't know what to do because she had been there for two weeks and every day for breakfast.It was exactly the same food. Basically cornflakes and toast. I hadn't realised before then, that in some countries, breakfast changes every day.

Howver your Russian friends are being weird. Russians like lots of Europe, celebrate on Christmas Eve. They have 12 dishes to represent the 12 apostles.
They also traditionally have Russian Salad on NYE.

We’ve never had turkey for Christmas dinner, for the sole reason that it’s no one in the family’s favourite food, so why would we eat something that is no one’s favourite for what is supposed to be a special meal?
We take it in turns to choose. Last year was lamb, the year before was venison wellington, this year we’re having a rib of beef.

They thought it was hilarious that practically a whole country cooked essentially the same dinner on one day of the year.
Have they never heard of Thanksgiving meals? And that is celebrated in several "whole countries", not just the USA.

I think less and less people are having turkey these days. We haven't had it for years (might have it over the Christmas period if we're out somewhere). We're just having a bog standard pork joint from the freezer that we bought on offer

Same here - last year we had home made pizza. It was wonderful. Much better than dry old turkey.

It was also lovely not having to join in the massive queues of people trying to grab sprouts and turkey at the supermarket 😃

I like it. It connects us all as part of the same culture.

We've not had a Christmas Dinner for about 10 yrs. Once we got out of mindset of "do it only because it's tradition" we all enjoyed Xmas loads more. We have whatever we fancy, this year is going to be steak, last year was hot buffet food and snacks all day, before that we an Indian takeaway for a few years that became our tradition for a bit. My Mum is dripping in tradition and will still have a Xmas roast no matter what, she visits us in the morning and goes home to cook for hours.

I absolutely love Christmas dinner - I love turkey and all the trimmings. Not everyone in my family does though. My kids do, DH less so. He prefers ham, so we have that too.

I like traditions - however, I wouldn’t bother with a turkey if I didn’t like it. Why eat things you don’t like?

I also like the traditional desserts - trifle is always a feature on Xmas day in our house.

I think it’s lovely. It’s a hand reaching back to your ancestors and a hand reaching forward to your descendants. I like the big cultural element - turkey at Christmas, lamb at Easter, whisky at new year etc but also the little family “we always have…” things. It centres you and brings you back. Novelty and change is necessary but rhythm and constancy are important too.

Not done turkey pretty much ever.

My parents always did chicken.

We have never done it. Cos it's awful.

Bellinis?

We always have curry ! My husband makes maybe 3 or 4 dishes in advance a day or 2 before! I make lovely naan bread

and we just have to heat it up then in the day - so nobody is cooking all day !

Tell her about Sunday roast. Comes around every week.

That's pretty hypocritical coming from a culture that has a week long festival dedicated to pancakes and belinis 😂😂
Its culture. Most people have a cake on their bday and a glass of champagne at a wedding too 😂

You're allowed to eat whatever you want any day of the year.

I can't believe you've only just realised this.

Russian Holiday Foods

We’ve never, ever had turkey on Christmas Day.

Growing up it was normally duck, goose or chicken - as adults we have chicken and share it with the cats and the dog

We usually have rib of beef or racks of venison.
this year we’re having goose.
I was shocked at the price of it, £110!!!
that’s to feed three of us, fussy DD2 is having fillet steak.

It isn't weird. It's tradition and culture and it's not compulsory. Even within the idea of a Traditional Christmas Dinner people have their own variations.

We usually have beef and maybe a bit of ham. We did look at other birds this year other than turkey but they were so expensive. I think people are slowly moving away from traditions here and just eating what they like. Puddings tend to vary a lot now and aren't as traditional. Families just make what they are good at making (or defrosting 😁) and have their own traditions.

I find it weird how most countries get together Christmas Eve but we do it on Christmas Day.

Well none of our family particularly likes Turkey so we've always had beef. This year it's beef wellington. Just a fancy roast init

It is weird really and whats weirder is people's shock that they dont have to eat turkey! I know a few people who moan about not liking it so I suggested drumroll... not having it and having something else instead, and you'd have thought I had suggested they have a threesome with their local vicar by the way they reacted. Complete shock horror that anyone deviate from the norm of turkey at Christmas!

If you love turkey then crack on, but this idea that you must eat turkey and sprouts on a specific day is so utterly bizarre to me.

I think food traditions are fascinating; I love the connection to our history and also how they have evolved. Turkey, for example, is a relatively new introduction. Beef was very popular in the Victorian age. A lot of traditions are based on seasonality too - a connection we have lost. Lamb is not generally associated with Christmas because it’s not the best season for it.