Christmas Culinary Traditions?

Do any of you have culinary traditions that you engage in at this time of year?

On the maternal side of my family (which is Polish and French), we all get together at my sis's to make pierogis every year for Christmas Eve (3 different kinds of pierogi). My paternal side (which is Irish, of course) always did a lot of baking of cookies and pies and breads.

Then a couple of years ago, my sis started a new tradition of gathering the family together at her house again to make tamales for New Years Eve (3 different kinds as well). One of my sis's best friends, who is Spanish, shared her family's recipe with us.

And this year, I hope to add another tradition in honor of my hubby's ancestors (Italian and Swedish) by trying my hand at making potica bread- a tradition which died out when hubby's Aunt passed away about 20 years ago. I was recently handed the recipe, so hopefully I will do well enough for the tradition to be revived and live on again.

What about you all?


IrishLass

Pickled herring! My mother and her grandparents were Lithuanian, and pickled herring was a staple for the holidays. I have a love / hate relationship with it, but dutifully buy some every December in remembrance

My fathers side of the family was big on burbon, black olives you can put on your fingers like finger puppets and chinese food out of to-go cartons, so thats all good

Cookies. Many different kinds in great multitides. Used to invite all the neighborhood kids over for a massive cookies decorative party.

They grew up. I changed to a low carb lifestyle, and happily, now have started making soap a Christmas tradition. When the house is empty, I put on loud Christmas music and soap!

I make Poppy seed and cream cheese kolaches every Christmas. It's an old family recipe and tradition, that was passed on to me, cause my only sister can't boil water, much less bake. Mix them up in my great grandma's ceramic mixing bowl. I make giant batches, and my neighbors love me. haha

Also a tradition that me and my kids have. My ex hated steak of any kind. She also hated the beach, which makes me wonder at times, "what the hell was I thinking". Anyways, the first year we we're divorced I thought, enough turkey, let's do a Prime Rib. Now every Christmas, I make a Prime Rib for Christmas dinner. Started out as just a three rib roast, as the kids were still young. Now, with the extra boyfriends, girlfriends, etc, I'm wondering if even the full rack is gonna be enough.

Cookies, cookies and more cookies. I got into soaping to get away from baking, but every Christmas I make several varieties for gifts. This year I am making soft molasses, cardamom sugar cookies, and chocolate crinkles. I made about 250 last weekend for a girlfriend to give as gifts and will probably make another 250 this weekend for my coworkers.

Oyster stew. Thinking about it makes me miss my mom even more than usual. Almost ten years since she's been gone, and longer since I had her stew for the very last time.

My mother's family grew up on the Louisiana Gulf coast. I spent about a third of my childhood there with all the weekends, summers, and holidays. We made fruitcake on the day after Christmas. About 200 loaf pans of fruitcake. Then on Christmas Eve, we had (wild)duck or seafood gumbo and baked sweet potatoes with my grandmother's home made rolls.(Guess where I got my bread baking from.) For Christmas, we had the usual fare of turkey, ham, and usually roasted duck with Dirty Rice(aka rice dressing), sweet potato casserole(hence baking sweet potatoes on Christmas Eve), green beans, mustard greens, more rolls, cole slaw, potato salad, and all the pies the counters could hold. All of the veggies were home grown and so very delicious.

Makes me miss my parents, grandmother, and all my aunts and uncles.

Two kinds of pierogies, beet soup, pickled hering, fish, salads, cheesecake All Polish tradition )

I usually make a huge pot of farina soup (chicken broth with farina dumplings), orange sauce for eating, do not know how to spell the name of the sauce, with the left over veggies and chicken from making the broth, stuffed grape leaves on Christmas Eve. Come Christmas we barbecue a whole prime rib. Not much better than a prime rib cooked in a weber. That tradition started when a friend of ours whom worked at Mannings Beef would give us a huge aged prime rib every year until he passed away :sad:. 15 yrs later we still carry on the tradition, although my daughter does the dinners now. My hubby is Armenian and Romanian so I learned to cook a lot of his parents traditional foods. Me, I am a heinz 57.
SeaWolfe I love pickled herring!!

Cookies and candy. I have a recipe that my mother cut out of a magazine the year I was born (1962.) I have made these every year of my life! And I make peanut brittle, almond toffee, divinity, fudge, marshmallows...Oh Lord, I think I gained 2 lbs just typing this out!

My dad's peanut brittle and his love of pickled herring.
Mom's oyster soup on Christmas eve. My brother Joe didn't like it, so more for us. He was happy with a grilled cheese sandwich.
Those awful sickly-sweet chocolate covered cherries that Aunt Gloria gave me.
Grandma Goldie's homemade divinity and her Christmas table groaning with ham and turkey.
The little hard-taffy candies from Brach's that were formed into pastel colored serpentine ribbons.
Grandpa Bernard's teaching me that gifts of the heart are the most important ones.
Grandma Viola's homemade egg noodles swimming in a savory chicken gravy.
Grandpa Teddy watching us kids open presents and grinning happily.
The smell of the pine needles warmed by those old fashioned bubbly lights.
Gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins.
My dear husband's refusal to eat lefse and lutefisk, despite our living in a Norwegian community where enduring such culinary trials is traditional.
Going to church on Christmas Eve and being given a brown lunch bag full of nuts in the shell and a single fragrant orange. The scent of the oranges blended with burning beeswax candles and fragrant pine boughs filled the church with an amazing incense.

<...coming out of my musing...>

Oh ... the culinary traditions I follow? I like to bake cookies. Spritz (cookie press) cookies are my favorites. I also make a few batches of my dad's peanut brittle. I tried Grandma Goldie's divinity a couple of years ago. It can be a tricky recipe, so I don't make it regularly. Maybe I'll try again this year. Chuck (my husband) loves smoked turkey and has asked me to make my pumpkin pie bars (pumpkin pie filling on a base layer of sugar cookie dough).

Our tradition is Cornish Hen with Wild Rice and veggies. Desert is pistachio ice-cream and we are both happy.

My mom has had an old wood burning cast iron stove that she has had forever, that sits in a room built onto the main house..every year at Christmas time everyone in the family comes over on Christmas Eve and gathers at one time or another in that room.

The fire is blazing in that stove, and we cook the turkey all night..several pots of coffee are made {some perked old style on the top of the stove} and we swap stories and funnies all night long while we sit and smell that wonderful bird roasting and listening to that roaring fire crackle.

When we're not in that room, we are usually in the main house cutting, slicing, etc, and making as many pies and cakes as the countertops will hold....{and my dad built my mom a huge kitchen {72 cabinets} so there is a LOT of countertop room }

I lost my dad last year, so this year it won't be the same, and my mom isn't in good health, but she's still spunky and we're going to carry the tradition until we're all gone I suppose..it's been going for my entire 50 yrs..no need to change things now

My mom always makes sherry trifle. Not really a fan myself but I eat it because it makes her happy. She also makes traditional Christmas fruit cake with marzipan and fondant icing which she 'feeds' with brandy for several months beforehand. I am looking up what all these foods you are mentioning are as I have never even heard of half of them!

Been putting this off, so I don't cry. I'll leave some out, and may amend later.

Oyster stew and a fried fish dish. We were at the time too far inland for fresh fish once memories kicked in.

Ham was important, Dad grew up going from town to town with his Dad, so ham was the DISH. Honey, brown sugar, clove studded, sliced pineapple, maraschino cherries for decoration. On little rye breads, you know, the ones they only sell at Christmas time, if you can find them, with mustard if you like. The leftovers with fried eggs the next morning, and maybe red eye gravy. Red eye gravy is the left over fat in the skillet from the ham with coffee added, that is it! ETA: Brown sugar rescue, I forgot again. Sugar and molasses mixed. Best to put in bowl with lid, or zip bag, shake a lot, let sit over night.

Always nuts in the shell of every variety. You had to crack and pick. It was even better in his later years when he went out and gathered bushels of Black walnuts (yes!!), English Walnuts, Pecans, etc... as he had has a child. He said sometimes that is all the Christmas they had and would eat them in front of a fire. I do not know if wood stove or fireplace.

Fruitcake. OMG! It is a huge recipe, could feed a town. Needed a 7 gallon galvanized tub to mix and make. Dry as all hello, but made in October, wrapped in old ripped sheets and soaked once a week in alcohol. They tried them all but a cheap bourbon was the best, spiced rum next, Schnapps or wine sucked. They did not drink, but cooked with it, and Dad did drink in the Navy, but quit because of us and Mom.

Potato Peanut Butter Roll Candy, to die for! Takes not time to make. Let sit overnight for best taste and gets better over the days. Mash a boiled potato (no skin), add powdered sugar (you can make your own by grinding table sugar in a food processor, magic bullet, what have you), until you can lay it on a counter and roll out like dough. Smear with peanut butter. Add more powdered sugar to board, roll up like a jelly roll, slice. Yum!!!

Divinity for a couple of years, but, the problem is cooking other things in the kitchen. Heat and humidity make it droopy. Can flavor and color though. But iffy with weather and cooking, so got dropped.

Always lots of candy, but most important Cherry Cordials with the clear center (lol), dad liked (yuck) Circus Peanuts (gross), Ribbon Candy a must for any table.

Cookies homemade with a new variety each year. Sugar Cookie recipes used to take over until Valentine's Day, the recipes were that large, or just too much other stuff. Almond Candy Cane shaped and color were my favorite, but we only had those once.

Applesauce Walnut Cake a must, yep, along with the fruitcake, but it only made 1 cake, not dozens.

Farm Butter on fresh rolls or bread.

Good cheese on crackers, a veggie and dip platter. Fresh fruit, but, MUST have tangerines (had them no other time of year).

I may homemade gingerbread with homemade lemon sauce and whipped cream, hey, whipped cream is good on everything! I don't mean that frozen stuff. Getting old and want whipped cream, not frozen crisco. Thought I'd add a soapy reference.

Always a few whole nuts, an orange, and an apple in the stocking.

I'm leaving out much I'm sure, but the radio station I have on is not conducive, and I con't want to cry.

ETAA: I forgot the 90 something neighbors gifts. Parmesan "crackers", more like cookies love them to this day. Fruit cake pound cake with a glass of Sherry (lol). Fried oysters. Those snow ball, wedding cookies, Pecan Dainties, the pecan cookie balls covered in powdered sugar.

Cookies...lots and lots of cookies! All my kids have a specific favorite and now that they're grown, I still bake the fav's and ship them off to the ones living away.

Fondue. When my kids were growing up we always made fondue for the night we decorated the tree. It was easy, fun finger food and all could come and go taking bites here and there in between putting up an ornament or two. I had to reserve the chocolate fondue for after the tree was done or they never would have eaten the meat, veggies and bread, lol. Now that I'm the only tree decorator left at home we have fondue on Christmas Eve. It entices them to come home for Christmas!

Breakfast Strata. I LOVE this recipe! I put the strata together on Christmas Eve then it goes in the fridge overnight. When I get up Christmas morning I pop it into the oven to bake while I'm putting the turkey, ham and/or prime rib together. By the time I'm ready to put the huge roaster of meat into the oven, breakfast is ready. Everyone gets a hearty breakfast before the wrapping paper starts to fly!

Y'all are making me hungry even though I just got back from grazing my way through Costco.

Our Christmas dinners are pretty standard: turkey, ham, cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole, broccoli rice casserole, some kind of healthy green thing that everyone takes to prove they are being good, jellied-apple-cranberry thing that everyone takes some of to be polite (but I secretly love). We set out meat, cheese and fruit trays, and deviled eggs (which I not so secretly love) to nibble on while waiting for invariably late relatives. Dessert is normally Sand Tarts (like a Mexican Wedding cookie), fudge and cheesecake.

The big thing that we HAVE to do every year is have black-eyed peas (made with the Christmas ham-bone) and cornbread on New Year's Day for luck or hangovers or some such.

LOL, black eyed peas and cabbage on New Year's Day are a long time southern tradition. It is supposed to bring health(the peas) and wealth(the cabbage) for the new year. And yes, I fix it every year. If I make ham for Christmas, I freeze the bone for New Year's black-eyed peas. If not, I go to the honey baked ham store and buy a bone from them. Yes, you can buy just a bone. Lots of meat left on there, and makes the BEST flavoring for beans.

Add some corn bread and some sort of meat(if you are feeding men folks), and you have the perfect New Year's meal.

Susie said:

LOL, black eyed peas and cabbage on New Year's Day are a long time southern tradition. It is supposed to bring health(the peas) and wealth(the cabbage) for the new year.

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Well, I was up to my elbows and eyeballs in cabbage yesterday until 1:00 this morning making the cabbage filling for our annual pierogi-making marathon which will take place tomorrow. Show me the money!

Susie said:

I go to the honey baked ham store and buy a bone from them. Yes, you can buy just a bone. Lots of meat left on there, and makes the BEST flavoring for beans.

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Ooooh! That's good to know! I did not know that.

IrishLass