Thursday, December 17, 2009

What Do You Eat for Christmas Dinner?

I was recently talking with my mom about what she wants me to bring to Christmas Eve dinner with the whole fam. My parents are hosting the big family get together this year because my bro, SIL, and the kiddos are in town. She's sure to go hog wild for the babies! But back to the food... My cousin Carlee jacked me and is bringing the sweet potatoes this year. Instead, I'm making some sort of peppermint-y ice cream dessert. FINE by me! No baking, no problem!

This got me thinking about what we traditionally have at our family dinners. For some reason, we ALWAYS have root beer at Christmas and drink them in the dark red goblets that my grandma and grandpa had when their kids were young.

For some reason, root beer is an obsession for Swedes. (Incidentally, A&W is WAY better than Mug!) We never questioned it, we just went along with it, because that's what you do with family traditions. Come to think of it, I wonder if my grandparents even know why they started the tradition... Anywhooooo, one year, someone forgot to buy it and you'd have thought someone keeled over and died on the Christmas table. That will never be repeated.

Do you have a traditional meal or dish at Christmas-time? Turkey? Ham? Swedish Meatballs (my FAV!)? Christmas goose, perhaps?



7 comments:

Kelly @ turned UP to ELEVEN! said...

Our Christmas was always a repeat of Thanksgiving (turkey with all the trimmings). The main even was the Christmas cookies, and egg nog. I guess the nog was the root beer of our Christmas celebrations. My boyfriends mother always makes Ham, which until I started dating him was only reserved for Easter in my house. It's so funny how families are all so different. MERRY CHRISTMAS! ox

CarleeKajsa said...

for the record...i told your mom i would bring the spinach salad in case you wanted to bring the sweet potatoes...also...it is hardly fair to categorize my sweet potatoes in with the side dishes...it is more a dessert...lets be honest...anything with that much sugar can hardly be constituted anything else! also - root beer is a must have...it goes the best with honeybaked hams...sommeliers pair it at restaurants...true...

Lin said...

We eat beef & turkey tamales. It's tradition for all the woman to get together at my grandma's house & make them a few days before Christmas. We're a pretty large family so we usually make around 300 of them. By the time Christmas comes around though, none of the woman want to see a tamale much less eat one, lol.

Tamara McDonald said...

Not that we ever had this for the actual Christmas dinner, but it is a south Texas tradition to eat tamales and more tamales at the holidays. We would always buy about 6 dozen or so to get us through! I have never had better ones than the ones we get in good ol' San Antone!

MRP said...

A gigantic ham.. that's our tradition.. we always have a gigantic ham baked in 7-up and pineapple juice with pineapples on top. Delicious! Ooh and deviled eggs.. but we have those for every holiday (and lots of other times too). lol

Unknown said...

i guess our only traditional food that we have is a jello cake. one layer of cake soaked in green jello, one layer of cake soaked in red jello, then "frosted" in cool whip.

yum!

foxy said...

Growing up in Texas, we've always always always had Beef & Chicken Fajitas with all the fixins. That is my family's traditional meal. It's even a tradition to vote (not it!) who's in charge of making the guacamole. There's a certain way we make it at our house and the process is kinda laborious, so no one ever wants to do it. :)