Christmas food traditions apart from the main meal?

MrsDangermouse

MrsDangermouse

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There's threads already discussing what people are planning for the main Christmas meal, but I was just wondering this morning what food traditions people have for the other meals around the festive period? Eg. Christmas eve, Boxing day and other meals on Christmas day.

We tend to eat Christmas dinner in the late afternoon so Christmas day breakfast needs to be substantial.....I like to do eggs benedict/royale - made with duck eggs to make it a bit more special. Christmas eve we often try to do something not Christmassy...cheese fondue is a favourite (made with cheddar and cider instead of gruyere, emmmental and wine). And for boxing day we have a ham, and we make sure there is plenty of cheese, cooked meats and pates in the fridge in case we just want something simple.
 
Christmas eve we usually have a seafood chowder and then various finger food. On New Year's Eve it is usually chinese food. Boxing Day is always meat pies at my sister's house.
 
We have taken to making a certain Thai Noddle dish each Christmas day. It is rather filling, very delicious and rather expensive to make as well, but we only eat it once or twice a year.
Otherwise, breakfast is as normal.

Otherwise we pretty much eat normally other than our wedding anniversary and my birthday. We try to go out on my birthday, but that doesn't often work out. 2 years ago, we failed to get to the restaurant after the motorway we were on was closed and we were trapped between junctions (pedestrians in the carriageway). By the time the pedestians had been cleared and the motorway re-opened in both directions, we were over 2 hours late (we had rung to let them) and all we wanted to do was go home! Last year we didn't even book it because of my back and me only just being out of hospital. I haven't decided if it is going to be a 3rd time...
 
Christmas Eve, we usually have our main Christmas meal of turkey or ham and all of the fixings, but we have kind of started a new tradition at home for Christmas day Dinner. For the last couple of years, my husband has made a delicious meal of fish and chips. We coat the cod pieces in a jalepeno paste and then dip them in the fish batter. It is so yummy. I then make a pan of baked fingerling potatoes to go with it.
 
Christmas Eve is usually an important dinner for most families in our country the main fare is Ham and the round Edam Cheese and wine to go with it. The other traditional food that is on a Christmas feast is pasta of your choice either spaghetti or Carbonara or Lasagna. A roasted suckling pig if you are too generous if not roasted chicken is enough. the dessert of choice is a fruit salad with coconut meat and milk and all purpose cream.
 
I tend to cook up a lot of different vegetables for Christmas, the same as I do for Thanksgiving. Those usually suffice for the side dishes. I don't go to the trouble of making casseroles these days, since it's usually just me or me plus a few friends. I really don't need the extra calories of those anyway, and love veggies, so am happy to cook and eat them as simply as possible. However, this year I decided to make coleslaw. I've only made it a few times, and it's been quite a while, so I looked around online for an easy sounding recipe. What I settled on was Robert Irvine's Cole Slaw, and I found the recipe quite simple, and to be honest, it is some of the best coleslaw I've ever tasted. The only change I made is that I used purple cabbage, which is my favorite. I love how colorful it is, especially mixed in with the carrots, and the marinade/sauce was yummy.

I created a thread with the coleslaw recipe, in case anyone would like to try it: https://www.cookingbites.com/threads/coleslaw-with-purple-cabbage.6576/
 
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We always have sugar cookies that we bake and decorate as a part of Christmas. I don't feel like it would be Christmas without them, honestly, because we've done it for so many years. We also used to do Christmas pudding, but it's so hard to source here in Japan (not to mention crazy expensive) so that part of it is tough!
 
Crackers with our meal ,the ones that go bang and contain a paper hat joke and plastic novelty,and sweet cider and icing sugar with the xmas pud
But I don't eat at home xmas day as I worked so it was bread and cheese
 
For Christmas eve we usually have:

1. Pasta
2. Some native delicacies like puto or biko
3. Fried Chicken
4. A dessert like Graham cake or ice cream

For Christmas morning we usually have:

Just one, leftovers from the night before, haha! And actually, these leftovers can continue to being our meals for at least three days. So we get really tired of eating all those Christmas Eve meals, lol.

For New Year's eve we usually have:

1. Round fruits
2. Fruit Salad
3. Pancit
4. Some native delicacies like puto or biko
5. Hotdogs and Hams
 
Actually, last weekend we celebrated a belated Christmas with my family. Some of our family haves are ham, baked beans, and some kind of vegetable, it varies. Ham is always on the menu, for Christmas at my parents house...so for my own Christmas dinner I opted for beef. Ham is good though...and I will often have that as well.
 
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