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RosieTR
12-25-11, 1:49pm
I could give a rip about gifts or decorations, but I like to have some solid food traditions that I only do once a year, similar to how Thanksgiving has its own. For Christmas, DH's family always did breakfast for dinner on Christmas Eve, and my dad always makes stollen, a German holiday bread, for Christmas breakfast. No idea how he chose that since nobody on my side is German, and in fact he's from Central America. In any case, I like the breakfast for dinner thing, so we usually do that now and I also make stollen for breakfast. Then, since DH loves tamales and they are the traditional Christmas food for Central America, I found a tamale pie recipe we like (easier than wrapping a whole bunch of tamales for the 2 of us!) for Christmas dinner. I think we'll try to make this the tradition going forward: breakfast for dinner on the Eve, then stollen for breakfast on the day with tamale pie for dinner-or maybe for the day after if we're with family in future years. Now I have to figure out some traditions for New Years DH's family didn't have anything in particular and my mom almost always makes roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, possibly to celebrate her British background. I'm not a big fan of roast beef so I'm still looking for something I could make into a tradition for the New Year.
What are your food traditions around this time?

Rosemary
12-25-11, 8:28pm
I always make my grandmother's stollen, too. My parents still make many types of Christmas cookies and send us a sampling of each. I could of course make them myself, but it's better when Mom makes them, just because they're hers.

However, we always spend Christmas with DH's family, and their foods are very different from my family's. I'm doing most of the cooking now that his mom is getting older, though. I make things that everyone likes, but they're not traditional to either of our families.

peggy
12-25-11, 8:42pm
You gotta have black eyed peas on New years! It's a law...somewhere. I think they send police and dogs and stuff to your house if you don't! You get either a wish or a kiss for each pea you eat, depending on who you're talking to. But it's gotta be black eyed peas.

IshbelRobertson
12-26-11, 5:11am
My family usually throw a huge party at Hogmanay (more important a holiday in Scotland than Christmas!) I bake black bun as it is a traditional staple at Hogmanay. It's a rich fruitcake mixture, encased in shortcrust pastry and 'fed' alcohol from baking date a month befor Christmas until final feed later today - it'll be ready for 31 December! Other traditional foods are steak pie, a huge pot of Scotch broth or lentil soup for those who've elected to walk to the venue in order to drink later, mutton pies and sausage rolls, a good beef casserole or venison casserole, loads of finger foods.

Traditionally, in Scotland, a massive house-clean goes on leading up to Hogmanay, often rooms are re-painted or re-papered between Boxing day and 31 December (houses often stink of new paint at parties we attend) - we keep alive a lot of Scottish traditions such as opening doors and windows at midnight, in order to hear 'The Bells' - all the cities churchbells ring in the new year. Each house is first-footed - lucky if it's a dark haired man, with a piece of blackbun or shortbread in one hand and a lump of coal in the other, and a bottle of whisky in a coat pocket - it signifies that you will have food, drink and warmth in the year to come. It used to be considered unlucky to be first-footed by a red-head (that's most of my family!) so we were always kept indoors at midnight and a favoured dark-haired rellie thrown into the cold to ensure the 'luck' of the house for the new year!

Blackdog Lin
12-26-11, 7:30am
I've pared down so much of our traditional holiday cooking in the interests of simplifying. The only ones left: (1) we MUST have breakfast pizza on Christmas morning; (2) we MUST buy a Fanestil ham to enjoy all sorts of ways; and (3) we MUST make our special Chex party mix, for gifting and having around the house for guests.

For years our New Year's Day tradition was a big pot of jambalaya, but have pretty much pared that out too, in simplifying my life.