Celebrating Christmas

[Gina]

How does every nationality spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? What is your favorite foods,and tradition? I will start .

I am Italian American Decent, Christmas Eve is very big with the italians, On the eve we have buffet style dinner. We start off with appetizers , cheese & crackers, shrimp cocktail, all sorts of different appetizers. Then we serve linguine and claim sauce. We go to my side of the family on this night, and my sister in law makes all different dishes made with shrimp for we all love shrimp. Shrimp scampi, shrimp oreganta, and fried shrimps. There is calamari salad, sometimes she makes lobster tails with butter. But over the years she has cut down for you can eat only so much. We all bake for the holidays so there is plently of desserts. It is a night of eating,we use to sing carols and we still listen to Christmas songs, at midnight we wish each other a Merry Christmas, my sister in law's tradition since she was a little girl, her family would take the statue of infant Jesus from the manger and pass it around for all to kiss.To welcome baby Jesus we do that , and then afterwards we open up the presents, We usually get home late after 1:00 in the morning..It is a fun night with all family and friends dropping in.

Christmas Day is spent with my husbands side of the family, it is a quieter day, we head out in the afternoon after mass and spend another day of eating, lol usually this holiday we have homemade raviolis or lasagna, my MIL passed away a year an half ago, so its a little different without her. We exchange gifts eat plenty of desserts and head home ...

[Mandy]

Christmas eve every one gathers at my place, i make cocktails, drinks, patés, salads, and snacks.
There's dessert's, cookies, and different coffee's so they can eat eat eat LOL
Later on we go to midnight mass, which is beautiful!
Come back to my house and exchange gifts.

Christmas day, they all gather at my house again for dinner. I make baked potatoes, mashed potatoes,4 different veggies, turkey and beef.
Schrimp cocktail and soup.
This year i'm not too sure what i want on the menu for dessert yet, but i'm leaning toward stuffed peers with icecream.
Different coffee's with banana pie, and a cheese platter.

[Janet]

In our family we've changed things just a bit, due to death and siblings living so far away.

What we've done for the last few years is go to my mother's house on the 23rd. Just light snacks are served. Cheese, crackers, deli meats, deserts and by brother always brings meatballs of deer meat. We use to go to my in-laws on Christmas Eve, but my FIL has passed and MIL is in nursing home. My husband, son and I, 2 sisters-in-law go out to the nursing home and exchange gifts. We then come home and around 9:00 PM my mother comes and spends the night with us. We get up open gifts and just lounge around. Then mother goes to my brother's house for dinner and we stay home. I fix a ham and light snacks with of course deserts. My son just has to have the Eclair Cake (listed in the recipe forum) every year for Christmas. That is really about it. We don't really have "traditions."

[Carolyn]

We're Italian like Gina and for us Christmas Eve is a bigger holiday than Christmas Day. It's also my Birthday.

We usually have for appetizers
shrimp cocktail
crab dip
steamed little neck clams

Pre dinner
Baked clams and shrimp oreganato
maybe filet

Main course
We used to have linguini with red fish gravy (sauce) and in it was clams, shrimp, calamari, slipper lobster tails and scallops. No one was ever able to eat this much so now for the main meal I make shrimp and scallop scampi over linguini.

Dessert is the usual cheescake and I make Christmas cookies etc.

Christmas Day we usually have some sort of pork roast like a fresh ham.

[Ponyup]

We don't usually do much for christmas eve except go to christmas eve service.

Christmas day, I get up & hubby & I exchange presents (I still wake up really early like a little kid). We head over to my grandpa's (this year will be the first year without grandma ) at about 10 & help my mom get dinner around. We always have ham loaf at christmas, twice baked potatoes, my uncle brings some type of appetizer, either wings or shrimp. All kinds of pies & my aunt makes a log roll (giant ho-ho). After dinner we open presents, one at a time youngest to oldest. Usually at thanksgiving all of the cousins exchange names & pick a theme & then we exchange presents. We usually go to my in-laws either the weekend before or after christmas.

[DianaB]

With all of that food I'm thinking that I'm going to change my nationality to Italian!!! It all sounds so good!!!

We always go to my husband's aunt's house for Christmas Eve. We have ham and all kinds of goodies to go with it. Someone always makes a big crockpot full of bacon-wrapped hotdogs. Yummmmm! Of course, we have lots of pies, fudge, cookies, and desserts. The adults sit around and visit, the bigger kids get out a game and play it, while the little kids jump on the beds. It's quite a bit of activity for a small house.

On Christmas day our daughters that are still at home (ages 24 and in college, and 14) get their stockings and bring them into our bedroom and open them up. Then we get dressed and open our gifts, one at a time. After we get done then we clean up and get busy fixing dinner.

I have 2 children who are married and have families and as soon as they're finished opening presents at home they come over to our house. We usually have turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, cranberry salad, a green salad, and homemade crescent rolls. For dessert we have pumpkin pie, cherry pie, and apple pie, and of course, homemade fudge!!! It's a lot to eat for my little family (13 in all), but we have left-overs for supper and the next day. Then we open gifts with the married kids and their families and again, we open them one at a time. Then we spend the rest of the day playing with the kids' toys or going to the basement and playing pool or ping-pong. Sometimes we get out cards and play a game or put a puzzle together. Later in the afternoon my son and his family leave to go and visit his wife's family. It's always a great day.

We have a couple of other Christmas's. One with my Mom and step-dad and another with my husband's family where we play the Stealing Santa game. We actually celebrate Christmas for about a week. It's nice to have it spread out instead of trying to do it all in one day.