havoc we are having a brined turkey, sweet potatoes boiled and mashed with a dollop of molasses and butter, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, sprouts, green beans and carrots with butter and black pepper, cranberry sauce (cranberries, orange juice, sugar, and grated orange peel), homemade gravy. Also stuffing (sage and onion with chopped chestnuts). A bottle or two of wine too. After all that, we'll have decaf with slices of pumpkin pie and pecan pie (I throw in some grated orange peel - the orange will do a lot of heavy lifting) with whipped cream, and collapse...
Apart from the desserts and sweet potatoes, that's pretty much my mum's Christmas dinners of yore. She also baked a ham. At Christmas I'll substitute roast beef for the turkey and repeat the side dishes and desserts, and add tiramisu. We'll also have horseradish sauce with the beef.
I made bread sauce one year and everyone decided it was poison and wouldn't touch it, but I might try it again. DS's GF will be joining us for dinner this year, and she's doing the sprouts - DS says she makes great sprouts, so I'm looking forward to seeing how she does them.
No green bean casserole - I've never tasted one as exMIL never served that either, and no marshmallows with the sweet potatoes (MIL served hers with toasted pecans, butter, and brown sugar). No mac n cheese either - the table will be in danger of buckling even as it is. And no jello salads either.
Yes, it's that time.