What are you having to eat on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? Inspire me please!

[LarryUnderwood]

We're at home for Christmas this year and I am off work from 23rd - absolute luxury. So I have time to plan and cook some nice food. I've dug out the old Delia Smith's Christmas, and rifled through the Kitchen Diaries, but I can't decide. We will definitely be having turkey on Xmas day with roasties, pigs in blankets, chestnut stuffing. But what other sides? And I always like to have some kind of smoked salmon starter, but what kind? And I fancy making a pudding - none of us love Christmas pud and we're always too full. So some kind of fancy but light dessert is in order. As for Christmas Eve, I haven't got a clue. Do I just get loads of ready to bake Christmas bits from the supermarket, or do some proper cooking? Inspire me with your tasty menus please!

I always do this Xmas eve with homemade chips, then have the rest over Xmas day boxing day

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/honeyandmarmaladegla_93186

I’m doing it the European way, celebrate and big meal Christmas Eve and use Christmas Day for lounging about, presents, skiing and grazing the smorgasbord of Turkey.

This means, for Christmas Eve, I’m doing a pork joint (ribbe in Norwegian), with cabbage, hasselback potatoes and candied carrots with gravy. For Christmas Day, nothing major, just the usual Turkey and all trimmings but not as a whole bird to enable the grazing feel. Not sure how it’ll go down yet but excited.

C Eve: don't know yet, something easy/non-fancy/oven job (last working day so will just be a PHEW, NOW RELAX! meal)
C Day: Steak, cauli cheese, chips, veg. Probably a couple of my self-made Pigs in B which are large chipolatas double-wrapped in bacon. Tarte au citron.

I don't really do breakfast AND lunch AND dinner, but maybe some yoghurt and fruit earlier in the day, I am always craving fresh stuff at this time of year.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/crab-linguine-chilli-parsley

We do a pyjama cocktail party on Xmas Eve having opened new pjs for the event. We have all the usual party foods and picky bits and I usually make a cocktail station. Then pancakes fresh fruit salad and Buck’s Fizz for Xmas breakfast. For the dinner it’s turkey and ham (IYKYK) stuffing sprouts roast and mash potatoes roast parsnips and carrots broccoli cheese Yorkshire puds and lashings of gravy. No starter we did one year but then couldn’t eat the dinner. Followed by pistachio tiramisu and or Xmas pud!

Chinese on Christmas Eve always 😋

Christmas Eve: luxurious fish pie and green veg
crepes suzette

Christmas day starter:
cut star shapes out of white sliced bread, brush with melted butter
lay on a tray and bake in the oven until golden brown, turning halfway - watch them like a hawk.
Take a piece of cold poached salmon, flake and mash in a bowl or food processor with a couple of tablespoons of cream cheese, lemon juice, black pepper and fresh dill to make a pate.

Take one star, pop a spoonful of pate on top, add another star on top of that. Next to it on a plate, add a ruffle of smoked salmon and a small wedge of lemon, garnish with dill or chives.

Pudding - take a look at Delia’s caramelised orange trifle.

Monday
Chicken and vegetable soup, bread
Chocolate mousse

Tuesday
Butternut squash, lentil and garlic pasta, garlic bread
Ice cream

Christmas eve:
Salmon for us, scampi for DS
Potatoes
Asparagus
Broccoli
Homemade chocolate shortbread or gingerbread

Christmas day:
Turkey/Nut roast
Turkey/veggie gravy
Roast potatoes
Carrots
Brussels
Pigs in blankets
Stuffing
Choice of cheese board, Christmas cake, chocolates

Boxing day:
Bread, cream cheese, smoked trout, cheese and crackers, pork pie, potato wedges, pickles, crudités and dips
Raspberry trifle

27th
Marmite pasta or jacket potatoes

Oh wow so many good ideas here! I'm definitely doing that gammon recipe for boxing day and picking during twixtmas! I've made my cranberry sauce and pickled cucumber and dill tonight. Think for Xmas day we'll have buck's fizz and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then smoked salmon on melba toast with pickled cucumber and sour cream, turkey with roasties, pigs in blankets, parmesan parsnips, green beans, cranberry sauce, chestnut stuffing, yorkshires, and clementine trifle or port jelly for pudding. And on Xmas eve we're having dim sum and fried rice. Yum!

@Gliblet what is marmite pasta?

Nigella's crowning glory 🤣 You cook the pasta of your choice until it's al dente, drain it but don't completely dry it out, pop it back in the warm pan and stir through butter and marmite (about a tablespoon of butter and a teaspoon of marmite per person you're cooking for). Top with grated cheese.

I add frozen peas for the last few minutes of cooking the pasta, they help add a little balance to the saltiness of the marmite. It's a lovely simple meal, especially after a few days of rich, fiddly stuff.

only Dh and I like Christmas pudding so it’s home made pavlova with lovely chewy meringue with a mallowy centre on Christmas Day.

It’s just me, DP and my mum this year.

Cheese soufflé, chips and salad and a bottle of champagne on Christmas Eve. Mince pies and mascarpone for pudding.

On Christmas Day, salmon pâté and crackers to graze on as a starter while we’re opening presents. Then turkey, pork and chestnut stuffing, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, sautéed sprouts with balsamic vinegar, honey and Parmesan and carrots for me and DP, with a cheese and herb crusted butternut squash pie and a vegetarian stuffing for my mum in place of the turkey. Black Forest trifle for pudding.

Christmas Eve we do fish. This year I’m doing whitebait with aioli as a nibble with an aperitif before we sit down, then a mixed seafood pasta (clams, mussels, prawns, scallops, squid). I’ve got some monkfish tails so deciding if they go in or not. We have Italian roots and I quite like the Italian American tradition of seven fishes on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Day we eat about 5/6 and don’t do a starter (we’ve usually had porridge and croissants for breakfast, and a picky lunch) but we’ve got fillet of beef with all the trimmings plus a turkey crown this year as one of our guests isn’t a beef fan. We will have roasties, carrots, parsnips, sprouts, cauliflower cheese, stuffing, pigs in blankets, devils on horseback, yorkshires and gravy. I might do a swede and carrot mash if I can be bothered and enough people vote for it. Horseradish and mustard and cranberry sauce liberally available.

Dessert is Christmas pudding with cream, and a guest is bringing a trifle. We have Christmas cake as an evening snack with a cheese board.

We’ve then got guests (changing ones) from 26th-29th so I need to plan on what to do for them, I’ve got a big box of Riverford veg to utilise so I’m thinking some nice winter soups - celeriac and apple, leek and potato, broccoli and Stilton.

We don't do anything original but placemarking for Christmas Eve ideas. Traditionally we have done a gammon on Christmas Eve, with chips, peas, fried eggs and pineapple or sometimes parsley sauce and veg, then the leftover meat can be used for sandwiches alongside the leftover turkey. We won't be doing that this year as we had gammon recently and think still have some left over. I'm thinking maybe Chinese or Thai at the moment.

For Christmas day, the usual starters we have, although I would be happy to have none, are melon, pate and melba toast, or breaded mushrooms with a garlic dip.

For pudding as well as a Christmas pudding there is a cheese board and some kind of meringue berries and cream thing.

Christmas Eve:
Slow cooked BBQ pulled pork on rolls

Christmas Day:
DH is making pancakes for brunch
For dinner - Beef joint for us, sausages for DD
Mash, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, honey roast carrots and parsnips, peas, sweetcorn, gravy
Haven't decided on dessert yet, going to see what they've got at the shops tomorrow