Christmas eve food ideas

[AmazingGrace16]

I'm trying to plan our Christmas eve food. It needs to be special as it's our little family day before we trundle down on Christmas day to the big event with extended family. I also haven't made plans yet for us so need ideas for them to. It'll be 3 of us , me Dh and ds (2)
So far I'm thinking a nice homemade soup with lots of bread rolls for supper. We will go to midnight mass so need to fit food in around that. Perhaps a cheese board for dh and I in the evening. So I suppose I'm looking for a main meal for around lunchtime.
Any ideas?

I always roast a gammon on Christmas Eve, sometimes serve warm with warm crusty baguettes and cheese or less refined egg and homemade chips

Oooh nice ideas thank you :)

I am permanently in awe of people who have nice nights of relaxation and nice meals on Christmas Eve!
We usually spend it like demented workers, slaving away getting the house ready, presents wrapped, kitchen prep and last minute shopping - no time for anything else. We have a houseful on Christmas Day, normally 18-20, so lots of cooking prep although dp does all of that, but there's still never any time for anything besides the aforementioned

Last year I did a lovely chicken stew (Hairy Dieters green book, chicken chasseur. Divine) with crusty bread, a few green beans and a big dish dessert. I think it was tiramisu. Not sure.

Year before that it was Frozen themed as DD was obsessed, popcorn for film showing, sausages, hassle back potatoes, beetroot salad, some sort of Scandinavian cake.

Year before that it was canapés. What was I thinking?!

How about a mini buffet of ready made Party food?? That’s our absolute favourite meal! All the shops have really yummy stuff nowadays (Aldi particularly only bring out the big guns about 2 weeks before) and you just bung it all in the oven.

@CakeNinja how on earth do you roast enough potatoes for 18-20 people?! I am in awe!

This year I am hosting so will have 12 for Christmas dinner, although 1 is not eating turkey dinner (tiny baby!)

On Christmas Eve I will probably do my gammon, and allow enough for some crusty rolls that evening in addition to the Christmas dinner the next day. We'll probably also have mince pies/mulled wine as we go to carols, and probably something light like soup.

It's my favourite day of Christmas, I love the laid back family time while the magic is still in the air!

Snausage, We have a double oven and an integral microwave oven thing aswell that only gets used as an oven once a year at Christmas!
The potatoes go in once the meat comes out, normally 3 trays of potatoes

We usually have a Christmas ham on Christmas Eve that I can then keep using for a few days but I think this year I'm going to do a pork shoulder cooked plain in the slow cooker. I'll then have more options with it, i.e. Served with a barbecue sauce and macaroni cheese for Christmas Eve dinner, then a bowl of it pulled with Apple Sauce on the Christmas Day lunch table alongside the turkey. The juices from it make amazing gravy which will help on the big day and it's really lovely with apple sauce and leftover stuffing so Boxing Day lunch will be sorted too.

We always go to M&S on our way home from visiting family and get some party food type bits. Then just throw it in the oven, have afew glasses of wine and just chill out

Btw. We also have a lot of people for Christmas Day (15ish) and I par boil my spuds last thing Christmas Eve and leave them in the garage in cold water until the turkey comes out of the oven. They then get blasted and are always fluffy.

Fish pie or seafood chowder

Turkey on Xmas day

Gammon on boxing Day

Then lush leftovers!

We usually order pizza , stress free food and no washing up.

I always roast a piece of gammon, too - with a spicy orange glaze. It smells really Christmassy while cooking.

In case anybody is interested, you make the glaze with
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp ground allspice
3 Tbsp orange marmalade
50 g Demerara sugar
This is plenty for a really big piece, so halve if smaller.
Mix all together.
20 mins before end of cooking time, take the gammon out, increase heat to 200 C, strip off the rind and score the fat into diamond shapes with a sharp knife. Cover with half the glaze* return to oven (best to,line tin with foil) for 20 mins. It smells lovely!

*Optional bit I don't usually bother with any more is to then cut an orange into thin half slices, fasten to gammon in a decorative pattern with cloves, glaze again and return to oven for 10 mins.

I've usually found that too many of the orange slices slide off, but it does look really nice if you CBA.

I've been doing this for so,long, it's part of our Christmas now. Whether we eat it hot on Chr, Eve or not, I always cook one anyway.

Thank you:) I'm leaning towards my soup and crusty rolls for lunch and a party food buffet for dinner. We can bundle all leftovers into a cool box to take down for boxing day buffet then :)
Maybe a nice pork pie and some pre-ordered naice bits from m and s....ooh I've never done a Christmas food shop before! This is exciting!

I'm thinking smashed Avacado toasts for Christmas day morning with poached eggs and bacon with champers. Maybe a North pole breakfast on Christmas eve with croissants and other bits :)

I was thinking it was just us that ordered a delivery or ate out. Thinking shit I must be the only lazy fucker to do this. It's a part of our relaxed Christmas.

Smoked salmon and cream cheese on baguettes after midnight mass is a must in our family!

We always have battered cod and chips (from the chip shop) on Christmas eve it is our once a year treat and we all love it !

I think we're going to do an antipasti, bread, cheese etc type dinner and probably have lunch out at some event.

Will be me, DH, and 2 DSs then 6 weeks and 2.5 years :)

what is a North Pole Breakfast?? I feel I am missing out!

Yes, I've started doing huge vats of soup also. Then over the next 4 days (ish) I'll have soup, ham, Christmas meal, part cooked bread as a ready-to-go buffet over next few days.

I'll add cheese board and chutneys to my selection also.

I mastered this last year at the ripe old age of 45 and I'm making this my Christmas tradition

I had to google "gammon". Ham or a roast turkey is our typical Christmas dinner. DH did a Chateaubriand steak last year and that was so good I may ask him to do it again.

We do our level best to do all the prep by 23 December so Christmas Eve is our first day of family Christmas proper. I love doing a glazed ham which we have with dauphinois potatoes, red cabbage and greens, and obviously plenty left over for sandwiches on Boxing Day. I also love the party food thing though so it's ham for lunch and canapés for dinner for adults, while we stuff stockings in front of the TV. We also go to a farm nativity done in the barn with real animals at dusk, and have hot chocolate there.

Christmas Eve is my favourite day of Christmas.

We usually have game pie (but could just as easily be steak pie) with mash and green beans and then Pavlova for pudding - one of my favourite meals of the year!

I never do a buffet as we have lots of cold meat style buffets after Xmas, roast gammon, turkey etc.
We do a casserole normally but this year sil family is coming to stay so they are cooking xmas eve.