Christmas Eve meal traditions!

[RaisingABabyBell]

Sorry to use the C word already, but thinking of starting a new tradition for Christmas Eve! My husband and I have always done a spread of party food - pizza, mozzarella sticks, spring rolls etc. What else do you guys do? All suggestions and ideas welcome 🥰

I like this idea! I normally cook a ham then just...have it in the fridge 😂 With jackets and crusty bread sounds divine!

Oh I love this!!! Sounds like the perfect kind of chaos!

Seafood Platter and Fizz

I like the idea of having the table ready for Christmas Day! Going out sounds lovely, DD is only 18 months but loves a meal out!

Same here. It gets one of the joints out of the way and is a good meal for swapping out the meat for something else for those of us who don't eat it.

Homemade, American-style blueberry pancakes for brunch. One of us is usually 'on-call' but as this basically means having the laptop open for the morning, we have a nice brunch to transition from work into the festive period.

We make sausage rolls for lunch and go for a walk with the hot sausage rolls acting as hand warmers.

In the evening, we keep things really simple before the rich food of Christmas day, and have lentil soup.

Since I had my youngest DSs (23 and 20 years ago now) we would have a Chinese usually, on Christmas Eve, once they were in bed (in their younger years)
As they grew they joined in so its a Yearly Chinese food Delivery we eat Christmas Eve night.

Pulled pork on bread rolls for Christmas Eve and now DS is older, mulled wine in travel cups for Midnight Mass

Crispy bacon, croissants and coffee and orange juice and bucks fizz for breakfast then Christmas dinner

Boxing day: leftover buffet. We tend to not sit and eat but graze all day. Usually a good park walk in the morning then home for showers and clean pjs

I usually send OH out to get an Indian takeaway because I'm too busy getting stuff ready for the next day to care about making anything.

Ours depends on whether it’s with my family or DH’s family. My family tradition is M&S party food platters and cocktails (last year was passion fruit martinis but changes each year) all eaten in the living room, sometimes with a film on. DH’s family tradition is a particular fish dish at a proper sit down meal. I don’t like fish so I nibble through the meal for politeness and then later I secretly make myself a couple of crisps sandwiches!

Chinese takeaway.

We always get a chinese takeaway as there's no way any of us want to cook on Xmas Eve when we need to host the next day.

I used to do a buffet with Christmassy food but about 12 years ago, when really pushed for time, I brought home fish and chips. It went down so well that we stuck with it.

We get a takeaway on the 23rd and get enough so we have some on 24th. We then don't have the stress of getting through to said takeaway or the long wait.

You could add a sprig of holly (plastic will do) to give it a 'festive lift'.

It has grown into a big event-anyone welcome to help but usually DD and I do it-don't have a themed tree or anything but we do something a bit different for the table every year-maybe white and silver and sparkly or green and gold.
Use various linens I have and pretty plates (inherited from grandmas) that get brought out once a year. I do things like baubles on the chandelier over the table to match. Candles, flowers, crackers or other decorative things.
Sometimes more rustic red and green-sometimes sparkly but it's so much fun and is such fun to do together.
We have done it since she has been a toddler although her input has obviously increased with time!!

since I always host on Christmas Day, i refuse to cook on Christmas Eve too. We go out as a family and have done since our youngest was about 3 (she’s now 20, son is 26). Somewhere really nice, get all dressed up then back to (still) do the reindeer food and the snacks for Santa 😂. Afterwards we do karaoke Christmas songs/hymns with a few drinks before bed. We all prefer it to Christmas Day tbh. Christmas Day is such a looooong day!!!!! And exhausting.

Take away, usually KFC or pizza. Never cook or do anything that requires any washing up etc

Fish pie or mini meatball lasagne.

We are going out for a Gastro pub meal. I booked it a couple of weeks ago.

Christmas is banned as it's my birthday so something special but not Christmassy

Growing up it was usually fish pie, but mum would also make the ham Christmas Eve so sometimes we’d have that as well/ instead.

DH and I have always done a bit of a buffet Christmas Eve, nice cheeses, crusty bread, pickles and chutneys, pate,some kind of seafood element, some token salad leaves - just stuff that gets whacked on the table rather than taking up much time/ effort. Last year we added the ham back in and think I’ll be keeping that up, I might actually just do that with some crusty rolls this year rather than all the other bits.

Beige buffet normally! Although dd1 has insisted its elevated to include a charcuterie board!

We have picked up meat order which includes
Pigs in blankets, sausage meat
The kids and dad "make" sausage rolls, which involves putting together sausage meat and ready rolled puff pastry

We make a baked camembert, bread roll platter so it comes out of the oven with hot rolls and cheese

And the rest is crunchy salad, mince pies, Christmas chocolates, tangerines.

It's communal, we play games at the kitchen table, Elvis Christmas songs on. Might be a christmas jigsaw to tackle.

Then we watch one Christmas movie(now they are teens this is die hard) and finally muppets Christmas carol before bed and they are insisting on still getting stockings from Santa who they never believed in in the first place!