What a What are your Christmas food traditions?

[AlwaysPrettyOnTheInside]

We have a ham that's cooked on Christmas eve, had for dinner that day and then here and there until its gone.

Christmas day isnt set, but is usually beef or lamb, and New year's day is beef.

Lamb at Easter too.

All followed on from my mum, and dh's family were the same too.

Roast chicken with pigs in blankets and all the other trimmings. We don’t like turkey.

We are rebellious, and apart from trifle for breakfast (and no posh trifle, made like my mum did with strawberry jelly, tinned strawberries, strawberry blancmange and a mass of whipped cream) we have no rules. Sometimes we do all party food, a meal entirely of puddings, or a roast (which might be courtesy of M&S or full on). We take each year as it comes, but trifle is forever

My only one is that I must have a chocolate orange on Christmas day. Everything else varies massively year to year.

We don't have many. Have to have and mulled wine whilst decorating the tree, and smoked salmon bagels with Bucks Fizz on Christmas morning. Christmas dinner varies, but usually profiteroles or tiramisu for dessert. Can't think of any others.

Christmas Eve adults and kids make sausage rolls, pigs in blankets, leek/cauliflower gratin.
Christmas Day cinnamon honey porridge, turkey & pork roast. Cheese board. Christmas pudding.
Boxing day leftover buffet with pickled onions, breads, hard boiled eggs, fresh crunchy salad.

No set traditions for New Year.

We fill a pretty glass jar with a red velvet ribbon around it full of lindor for all of December. And I have a white chocolate orange for breakfast on Christmas day. Nothing else is set in stone, really.

We are in Australia, so the traditions reflect that. We usually have a buffet, with every cold meat you can think of, plus huge bowls of prawns. Salads galore. I usually make a very decorative trifle, with the kids helping. Lots of watermelon! In the morning we have bacon and egg rolls cooked by my son in law, yum !

Cheese board on Christmas Eve night
Pork pie and toast for breakfast on Christmas Day
Dh and Dd make a Boxing Day pie for lunch using the left overs from the Christmas Day roast

Each year I make a big batch of braised red cabbage as part of the Christmas meal - then portion it up and freeze most of it for future roasts. I'm the only one in the house that eats it so it lasts me most of the year!

Oh we have pigs in blankets too, and yorkies, I have those even if not having beef. And always stuffing balls. Whether us chicken or not. We dong like turkey either.

So no rules for what goes with what. Just the main on which day it seems.

Selection boxes are for breakfast on Xmas day, along with bread, ham etc.

I'm going to introduce baileys for my breakfast this year I think 😁 might start off with a bailey's hot chocolate with whipped cream, with my selection box, then may as well finish the rest 😂

We always go out to eat on Christmas Eve. We used to always have home made pigs in blankets and a ham (I don't eat either) but my DS doesn't eat it anymore. I used to drink mulled wine putting up the tree (and the tree reflected how much I had drank) with some Christmas music. We visit some family for dinner on Boxing day. I try to keep Christmas as stress free as possible.

When I was small the turkey was always cooked Christmas eve and we would have sandwiches. Christmas day was always stressful and a let down growing up.

Turkey dinner with all the trimmings but otherwise it depends, I like smoked salmon, avocado and cream cheese bagels for breakfast with other members of the family having some of that combination if they are veggie, vegan, hate avocado and dad having bacon

I do a ham on Christmas eve in cola with bread and coleslaw. Christmas day, breakfast changes, loads of nibble, rib of beef, red cabbage, stuffing, spuds, parsnip, sprouts, bread sauce yorkshires, pigs in blankets. Later loads of cheese with homemade damson cheese( like a set jam) and damson gin. Chocolate as needed.

Fresh baked cinnamon roles with cream cheese frosting for breakfast on Xmas day.

Always mulled wine whilst decorating the tree.

Quality Street and shortbread biscuits.

Yes! We need twiglets, cheese footballs and a box of roses/quality street etc too.

We are only three so we do a fancy Sunday roast.

Nice starter, soup or parma ham with melon.
Then any kind of roast which is not beef or lamb. With roast potatoes, sprouts for one, roast veg. The only typical Christmas addition are pigs in blanket.
Dessert can be anything we fancy and can prep a day before ideally.

French toast and bacon for breakfast, turkey dinner about 4 or 5pm. Always have sweet potato as well as roasties. Christmas cake and a fruit something (pie or crumble). Ham on Boxing Day.

We always have pork pie for Christmas Day breakfast. My nan did and my mum did so we do too .

Warmed blinis with smoked salmon and cream cheese for breakfast alongside freshly baked croissants and sausage rolls.

Traditional roast turkey ( crown) with all the trimmings for dinner mid afternoon.

If anyone's hungry in the evening, I cook some part-baked French sticks and folk can help themselves to various cheeses, grapes, figs and chutneys.

We have two Christmas Eve traditions. Fish for lunch, which I guess comes from having a Russian granny, although we don’t have freshwater fish.

After we get back from the afternoon panto or cinema, we have pizza on the rug in front of the fire while watching a film, with the tree twinkling away. It’s the only time of year the kids get to eat in the drawing room.

DH makes beef Wellington at some point. It’s delicious, but the making is quite an event and he needs half a day putting aside.

Usually prepare red cabbage and bread sauce a couple of days beforehand.

Cauliflower cheese Xmas eve with leftovers to go with Xmas day dinner.

Morning would be scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, then fruit.

Roast chicken, pigs in blankets, cabbage, carrots, sage and onion stuffing, roast potatoes, onion gravy, Xmas pudding later, cheeseboard and grapes in the evening.

We have quite a lot of food traditions.

Before Christmas we make gingerbread biscuits for the tree, mince pies, peppermint bark and a Christmas cake.

On Christmas Eve, we have lentil soup for dinner.

On Christmas day, we have stocking food for first breakfast. The stocking always includes a Chocolate orange, a chocolate Santa, a chocolate reindeer, chocolate coins, a clementine, and a salami.

For second breakfast, we have bagels with smoked salmon and freshly squeezed orange juice.

In the afternoon, we have a feast, doing things (opening gifts, calling family, going for a walk, watching TV etc) between courses:

First: blini with avruga, smoked salmon on Irish wheaten bread, croutons with paté, devils on horseback, mushroom vol-au-vents,

Next: roast chicken/capon with pigs in blankets, stuffing balls, swede and carrot mash, Brussels sprouts, roast parsnips and roast potatoes, with gravy, bread sauce and cranberry sauce.

Then: Green salad

Followed by: Christmas pudding and cake

And finally: cheese and biscuits. And a bit more salad.

We also decorate the table with food - grapes and Clementines and shiny chocolate coins. They get nibbled with the cheese and eaten properly on Boxing Day.

The next few days are about the leftovers. Mostly cheese, pigs in blankets, stuffing, crackers, veg and more salad. I try to go 3 days without actually cooking anything.

Also we have kedgeree on new year's Eve, and eat the rest for lazy hungover new year's Day breakfast.

Ferrero rocher for breakfast on Christmas morning.
Turkey and mayonaise sandwiches on batch bread, real butter and tayto at 9pm Christmas night.