Do you cook turkey for Christmas dinner or a different bird?

ChowDownBob

ChowDownBob

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In our house the Christmas "bird" is a large turkey crown (we don't have a big enough oven to accommodate a whole bird and all the potatoes and veg etc. so we get a crown from the butcher around the corner and cook it on the top shelf).

Are you a turkey family or do you cook a different bird like a partridge?
 
We always have a turkey as the main meat of the day. However, we also serve ham, pork and pigs in blankets. We have melon for starters and Christmas pudding for desert. Christmas eve we have hot pork barmcakes with gravy, apple sauce and stuffing. In the evening of Christmas Day, we serve all the leftovers from the lunch meal, salad, bread, prawns, salmon and a selection of cheeses. It's a buffet really. Boxing day we just have another buffet with hot new potatoes and garlic mushrooms added to the menu. writing this, I have realised how hard work me and my mum make out of Christmas.
 
By family has always had turkey baked in the oven. We are fortunate to have a large oven, so we can fit a really big turkey in it. Christmas and Thanksgiving menus have usually looked very similar, if not almost the same. I am not sure why my family does it that way when there are so many other good options, including ham.
 
We have been cooking turkey with our Christmas meal for years, along with ham and beef stew, but that is when the whole family was meeting at our house. For the past few years, however, since we have been meeting at another home, the meat used is always baked chicken done by another member of the family. Here again, we also have ham as well as beef stew along with this. I think traditionally turkey is the main meat associated with Christmas though, and it would be found in many homes around this time.
 
For Christmas dinner we seldom have turkey. It's actually become a hassle for me to even get our family to cook a turkey on Thanksgiving of all days. My mom and my sister don't like turkey that much, and prefer roasted chickens. They complain every year about us cooking a turkey in the oven beside their precious chickens. In other words, because *they* aren't eating turkey, then for some god forsaken reason, the rest of us shouldn't be eating any either. They're nuts, and control freaks, such is life.

Anyhow, since Christmas seems to arrive almost immediately after Thanksgiving, and nobody in our household wants to be bothered thawing yet another turkey for X-mas as well as listening to the two of them start their whining and complaining again, we usually opt for a ham instead, along with some homemade meatballs and pasta and a bunch of other side dishes. Oh and plenty of garlic bread. Sometimes my dad will also pick up a beef roast or a beef tenderloin to roast as well.
 
We always preferred a goose at Christmas. Apart from being more tasty it really is more traditional here in the UK. However now that there is just the two of us we tend to go for a duck - smaller and all gone on the one day, no never ending leftovers.
 
We always have the Turkey at Thanksgiving, at Christmas we have a ham. To be honest I kind of wish we had Turkey again for Christmas as well. There was a time when we had both when the whole family to get together. But that was years ago, and no we have the ham for Christmas because this is what the family I live with prefer for the Christmas holiday. As for me I prefer Turkey we don't get Turkey that often, as things stand its usually just once a year.
 
We usually cook turkey but since there are only two of us we don't cook a whole bird, it seems like way too much. We'll usually just buy a big turkey breast and cook that with all the trimmings. That also means that we don't have to eat turkey leftovers for weeks.
 
Since we do turkey for Thanksgiving, we are a little tired of it by the time Christmas rolls around, so we do other dishes, like Prime Rib. We still have a huge layout on the table with all kinds of sides and sometimes a second main course, but we steer clear of turkey.
 
Because of thanksgiving, we usually do chicken. I absolutely love turkey but we pretty much like to stick with the turkey tradition on thanksgiving. I feel that having it on Christmas also is a little boring. Usually after three days of left over turkey people are tired of it.
 
Turkey all through December at the restaurant ,I counted 29 then on Christmas Day I did a boned out 4 bird roast
 
This is out of season but let me post. Christmas is for roasted chicken, the whole chicken that is normally roasted on charcoal - is that broiled? We don't have turkeys here and it is out of our tradition. Aside from the big chicken we also have barbecue and not to forget the long strands of noodles or pasta, any will do. That's practically our menu every Christmas although there have been variations someho but the whole chicken is always there.
 
Corzhens said:
This is out of season but let me post. Christmas is for roasted chicken, the whole chicken that is normally roasted on charcoal - is that broiled? We don't have turkeys here and it is out of our tradition. Aside from the big chicken we also have barbecue and not to forget the long strands of noodles or pasta, any will do. That's practically our menu every Christmas although there have been variations someho but the whole chicken is always there.
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Roasted is what we say in the UK. Chickens here are the cheapest meat and we often cook a whole one on Sunday. Turkey is what a majority of UK families would probably have at Xmas, but increasingly, people are trying alternatives such as goose or, as Berties said 3 bird or 4 bird roasts, where different birds are boned and stuffed one inside the other, like Russian Dolls! You can get even these (frozen) in our bargain supermarket, Aldi. Can you get turkey where you are?
 
Corzhens said:
This is out of season but let me post. Christmas is for roasted chicken, the whole chicken that is normally roasted on charcoal - is that broiled? We don't have turkeys here and it is out of our tradition. Aside from the big chicken we also have barbecue and not to forget the long strands of noodles or pasta, any will do. That's practically our menu every Christmas although there have been variations someho but the whole chicken is always there.
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Now that sounds NICE. However here in the UK it's a bit cold for BBQ at christmas.
 
Having grown up in Australia, back there we would have turkey out of "tradition" but often a lot more summery foods, since Christmas is in the middle of summer! BBQ meats, lots of fresh salads, cold ham, and summery desserts with a lot of fresh fruit were often on the menu. However now living in the Northern Hemisphere, it's a much more traditional take on Christmas. Lots of warm, wintery, heavy foods. We usually have dinner with the inlaws, and they always have turkey, pies of some description (apple, pumpkin or pecan are favorites), roasted vegetables -- in fact it's pretty similar to the menu that we prepare for Thanksgiving that we repeat at Christmas -- not that I'm complaining because the food is delicious!
 
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