What's a traditional Xmas eve dinner?

[Samr85]

I know it's early but I want to be ready n plan ahead.

My family have invited themselves to spend Xmas eve with my partner and 2 children. I don't see them often so was thinking of cooking something traditional but simple. We are all going to other family Xmas day for Turkey so want to avoid that!

I will be cooking for 5 adults n 2 children. Something tasty but simple?! Any ideas? If I prepare now I can do a couple of trial runs lol. X

I normally do a fish pie- easy peasy, everyone loves it, open the fizz and enjoy.

Something from the takeaway with half a litre of baileys to wash it down.

I always used to do a really nice casserole - often the Delia one with guinness (sp?) & pickled walnuts. Did it with beef not venison.

Mash & a couple of other veg to follow.

I'd love fish but a lot of the family didn't.

Nice thing about this is you can do it quietly now & freeze it.

We usually do nice bread and salads, pickles, plus a couple of baked camemberts and some hot sausage rolls. Mince pies, berry meringues with cream etc for pudding.

Otherwise, I'd be thinking along the lines of a chilli or curry, with rice and salads.

Takeaway curry is our traditional Xmas eve meal but then I cook in Xmas day so cab to cook the day before

I cook the gammon and we have it with jacket potatoes and salad. That's our tradition, although not traditional.

I usually bake all afternoon on Christmas Eve so it's nice to have something that can just be chucked in the oven after all the sausage rolls and mince pies are done.

We go out for a really lovely lunch with fizz with my folks that day then in the evening I cook the ham and we eat it out of the oven with pickles, mustard, gherkins, relish and fresh bread with a glass of wine. We have done the same thing every year for the past 7 years so it has grown into a tradition now for our family. My mum always cooked the ham on christmas eve too.

Nigella's Christmas book suggests cooking the ham and serving with macaroni cheese and I think this would be delicious and if we were not going out for lunch I would do this for sure.

I think fish is traditional (but that might be a Catholic thing).

Don't try a takeaway - we did that last year - waited 90 minutes, within which time the wrong order was delivered twice.

We got a free calendar though!

Baked carp - a traditional German Christmas dish...

DH is from Sweden where they have their Christmas celebration on the 24th. So we have the full swedish works, pickled herring starter, ham, meatballs, potato gratin. Plenty of vodka. Delicious!

oh ffs put this in fucking christamas already

Carp traditional Czech meal on Christmas Eve too, iirc.

We usually have baked ham, so that there's plenty of cold ham and turkey for Boxing Day.

And what are you carping on about, speaking of fish, Lord P? Stop being a misery guts. :)

CHRISTMAS TOPIC

FOR GODS SAKE ITS ONLY EARLY NOVEMBER

how can you spend two months worrying about this shit

I don't spend any time worrying about it - I just like food.

We always have fish, so prawns mussels oysters etc... Tis nice

Homemade pizzas, salads, garlic bread

just because its not important to you lord doesn't mean it's not important to others. There are lots of other threads you can look at instead.

We do a cheese fondue, and a green leafy salad

We always have a takeaway banquet or anything very different to a roast fajitas or something

I bake the ham on Christmas eve and then we have it with salad etc. Loving the mac cheese idea.
We also have ham and toast for Christmas day breakfast because that's what my Mum and Dad did

Love Christmas food

We always have pork roast sandwiches every year at In laws !

We go out Christmas Eve, but when I lived with my parents we also had the cooked Christmas ham with pickles and potatoes.