One of my goals for this month (to get done before Christmas, obviously) was to figure out the menu for Christmas Day and get any groceries that we needed for it. Done and done! Last week I did a huge shopping trip and aside from milk, orange juice and a few last-minute food gifts, I won't need to grocery shop again until next year! What a nice sense of "ahhh!"
First I want to share a little about our non-traditional Christmas Day food. Growing up, most years Mom and/or my older sisters slaved away in the kitchen making THE Christmas Dinner with the turkey, mashed potatoes and all the things that go with. Then one year we decided that no one (a) had time or (b) want to. No "want to" to fix the huge meal, and no "want to" to clean up from it! So that year we had special finger type foods and some special jello salad. We did start the day off with a REALLY special breakfast of bacon (a rare treat in a house of 12 people!), fried 'taters, gravy, biscuits (I think?), orange juice (another rare treat!), and a couple other things. That was the big meal for the day. After that it was fend for yourself with stuff like cheese, crackers, party mix, and so on.
I am typically all about making big days simple, so when Daniel and I got married we adopted that Christmas Day tradition for our own. It is one of our family "rules" to stay home all of Christmas Day, or most of it, and just enjoy the time together. (Our families get together later anyway.)
This year our menu consists mostly of special splurge foods. Many of them are way more processed than I would typically buy, but this is a very special day so we enjoy the treat of very special food :)
Breakfast:
Monkey Bread
Quiche
(both of these I will make)
Munchie Foods:
Li'l Smokies wrapped in homemade biscuit dough like tiny pigs-in-a-blanket
Shrimp and Cocktail Sauce
Summer Sausage, Cheese and Butter Crackers
Peaches and Cottage Cheese (I had to put something healthy and not salt-laden on the menu!)
Dessert:
Peanut Butter Pie (Daniel's)
Coconut Cream Pie (mine)
Pumpkin Pie with CoolWhip (Susannah's)
For the dessert, I am borrowing a Thanksgiving tradition from a friend of ours, where you make each person's favorite pie (or whatever pie they request). Susannah isn't old enough to have a favorite (or at least to tell us what it is if she has one!) and since we all like pumpkin pie and I don't make it often enough, that is the 3rd pie. Of course we will all share our pies with each other and I'm sure we'll be taking leftovers to share with Daniel's family!
5 comments:
That's a great tradition! We go to both sides of our families and also have to fit milking cows twice into the mix (one milking is done by a relative thankfully). It is a stressful day and hard to enjoy because you are racing to and fro. I would be all for staying at home to enjoy the day. Do you guys go to church that day? It is a Sunday this year and I would love to go but...darn cows!
@Meghan Because of the farm (plus my dad's parents lived right there on the farm, too) we never went anywhere on Christmas Day. It never crossed my mind to NOT stay home. I think the first year we were married we did Christmas w/ Daniel's family on the 25th, and I was so disappointed to not get to spend the day "just us" (and most years Daniel has to work the days before and after if it's in the middle of the week). After talking about it, we decided we were going to claim the 25th as "ours" and we get together with his family on another day when it suits everyone.
And I think the first year we did the finger-food thing was the year we were milking ourselves (instead of hired help) and milking 300 2x/day plus all that goes with, doing a big Christmas Dinner is the last thing you feel like doing, haha! After that, we liked the simplicity so much we kept on doing it that way even though we weren't doing the milking.
@Meghan Oh, I forgot to mention that yes, we will be going to church that day. Our church is only have an 11am service, though (instead of Sunday School and PM service), so it will still be a lower-key day.
Great tradition! We typically have our "big meal" on Christmas Eve with my extended family, then a big breakfast at my parents on Christmas morning. Up until Jacob and I got married, we just did the finger food thing on Christmas Day, but his extended family gets together Christmas Day evening and has a big meal. It's pretty crazy juggling all the family get togethers...especially since this year Christmas is on Sunday.
Hope y'all have a Merry Christmas!!
May I come to your house for Christmas day?
Post a Comment