For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. That
'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
brought home No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.

Sky

P.S. There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! (groan &
giggles!) Those cheese straws still have to be made!

--

Ultra Ultimate Kitchen Rule - Use the Timer!
Ultimate Kitchen Rule -- Cook's Choice!!

For me growing up Christmas food customs always included:

Strufoli-My father would make a huge mound of flour on the counter and
mix in the eggs with his fingers just as if making pasta. He use about
a dozen eggs so it was always a huge batch! The rolling out and cutting
included the strufoli pressed against a particular piece of cut glass
that would imprint a bit of texture to the dough before frying.
I'm not a huge honey lover, so just dipping them into cane sugar or
eating plain was good with me. But I always try to make a small
decorated mound anyway. We'd package them up in old cookie tins and
enjoy them for weeks. When they'd get hard and dry and my father would
drop a few in his morning coffee. My husband enjoys them fresh with red
wine as we're cooking them.

"fast before the feast" meaning Christmas Eve was meatless, Christmas
Day was the pig out meal.

Christmas morning my father would sip on a small shot of anisette while
the 7 of us opened presents. Sometimes the anisette had ground coffee on
top to sip through. I figure that helped keep a very tired dad mellow
with all the commotion going on around him, lol.

Christmas was often a very English meal-roast beef, Yorkshire pudding,
many veggies, escalloped apples, etc. followed by trifle for dessert.

On Dec 23, 12:58*am, Sky > wrote:

I can't recall my family having any traditions. Honestly, I
can barely remember any Christmases at home. Maybe
it's because I was an only child. We weren't religious,
either, and I'm less so nowadays.

My husband's family always had breakfast casserole,
fruit salad, English muffins, and Bloody Marys.
The two of us follow that tradition, but we
skip the Bloody Marys, because we
don't need to anesthetize ourselves against
screaming children.

Cindy Hamilton

On 12/23/2010 12:58 AM, Sky wrote:
> For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
> sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
> around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. That
> 'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
> was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
> brought home No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
> everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.
>
> Sky
>
> P.S. There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! (groan &
> giggles!) Those cheese straws still have to be made!

We don't have a food tradition, per se, but one of our cookie traditions
is Christmas Roses. These cookies are rolled out and then cut in
circles of 3 different sizes. Then you put them together with one
small, one medium, and one large, putting a dab of water in the center
of each to make them stick together. Then you make 4 cuts around the
outside almost to the center. This makes the petals. Then you deep
fry them and they puff up a little and the petals separate. When done
you dust them with powdered sugar and put a glob of red currant jelly
in the center. They are beautiful and taste wonderful. I like to eat
them by pulling off the petals, one by one, and dipping each one in the
jelly before eating it. Yum.

My personal holiday food tradition - if you stretch the meaning of
"food" to include beverages - is mimosas for Xmas brunch. I started
this many years ago when I was living in So. Calif. My mother and
sister and her husband were living there also. We would all have Xmas
together and I started making mimosas for us to have with brunch. I
continued the tradition after moving back to Pittsburgh.

Unfortunately (?) I only have my 80-year-old aunt and my disabled cousin
to spend Xmas with and neither of them drink. Thus I must force myself
to consume a whole champagne bottle's worth of mimosas. It's a dirty
job but someone has to do it.

This year I'm doing something new. I found a recipe for Pomegranate
Mimosas. It's pomegranate juice, orange juice, orange liqueur, and
the champagne. I can't wait to try it.

Last year I kind of went off the trail and made bellinis instead of
mimosas. But I think I prefer the mimosas.

Happy Holidays everyone,
Kate

--
Kate Connally
“If I were as old as I feel, I’d be dead already.”
Goldfish: “The wholesome snack that smiles back,
Until you bite their heads off.”
What if the hokey pokey really *is* what it's all about?

On 12/23/2010 8:51 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
> On Dec 23, 12:58 am, > wrote:
>
> I can't recall my family having any traditions. Honestly, I
> can barely remember any Christmases at home. Maybe
> it's because I was an only child. We weren't religious,
> either, and I'm less so nowadays.
>
> My husband's family always had breakfast casserole,
> fruit salad, English muffins, and Bloody Marys.
> The two of us follow that tradition, but we
> skip the Bloody Marys, because we
> don't need to anesthetize ourselves against
> screaming children.
>
> Cindy Hamilton

We must always have monkey bread christmas morning. Like his mom made. :-/

--
Currently reading: Finals over! Yay for an A in organic chem and a B in
Human Anatomy and Physiology. Now what to read?

On Dec 22, 11:58*pm, Sky > wrote:
> For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
> sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
> around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. *That
> 'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
> was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. *For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
> brought home *No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
> everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.
>
> Sky
>
> P.S. *There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! *(groan &
> giggles!) *Those cheese straws still have to be made!
>
> --
>
> Ultra Ultimate Kitchen Rule - Use the Timer!
> Ultimate Kitchen Rule -- Cook's Choice!!

Mine is making my Christmas Candy. And my nephew Paul has taken up the
mantle and makes his own Christmas Candy now! He came over last night
and he made his toffee! And he's even more old school than I am, he
uses only sugar and butter, and does not use a thermometer or a marble
slab! Although he made a double batch last night and used my marble
slab.

John Kuthe...

Along with other cookies etc, my mother always made a big batch of
fudge. It had to be placed on a certain pale pink, glass, 3 footed
dish and the fudge would disappear in time.

She'd make a cheese ball for Xmas Eve company, plus a fairly sizable
midnight supper, usually something alon the lines of a seafood
casserole.
Xmas day brought the turkey, about ten side dishes, fresh fruit cup,
shrimp cocktail, fruitcake, pies.....oh, the work she put in, and she
worked a full time job to boot. She loved doing it and always got out
the best linens, silver and china. No plastic forks or Chinette in
THAT house. And NO dishwasher!!

My brother loved to lie under the tree and stare up at all the
lights. I bet he still does it when no one's looking.

On Dec 22, 9:58*pm, Sky > wrote:
> For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
> sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
> around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. *That
> 'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
> was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. *For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
> brought home *No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
> everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.
>
> Sky
>
> P.S. *There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! *(groan &
> giggles!) *Those cheese straws still have to be made!
>
> --
>
> Ultra Ultimate Kitchen Rule - Use the Timer!
> Ultimate Kitchen Rule -- Cook's Choice!!

We always had grilled tenderloin, peas and pearl onions in a white
sauce and a salad.

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:58:50 -0600, Sky >
wrote:

>For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
>sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
>around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. That
>'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
>was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
>brought home No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
>everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.
>
>Sky
>
>P.S. There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! (groan &
>giggles!) Those cheese straws still have to be made!

AH, memories.

Hungarian crescent horns, made with buttery Phyllo dough and filled
with creamed poppy seed, lekvar (prune puree), or creamed walnuts.

No touch, (did you not hear me?) I SAID NO! Until Christmas day. <G>

They are *very* difficult to make, so most people these days sub puff
pastry dough or pie dough. My Gmother had a helper who come to her
house, and who made the *best* paper thin dough. The dark side was
that she was a thalidomide baby, and had no fingers. The stumps of her
hands, buttered, allowed her to stretch the dough to the thinness of
wax paper without tearing it. Makes you want to cry just to think on
it.

the cookies are called Kifli, and are crescent shaped to celebrate the
Muslims' armies defeat at the siege of Vienna,

Alex

"Sky" > wrote in message
...
> For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
> sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
> around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. That
> 'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast was
> served, usually around 1 to 2pm. For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
> brought home No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
> everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.
>
> Sky

Christmas Eve - Good quality cold cuts & all kinds of olives cheeses etc.
from the local Italian Deli

Dimitri

"Dimitri" > wrote in message
...
> "Sky" > wrote in message
> ...
>> For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
>> sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
>> around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. That
>> 'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
>> was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
>> brought home No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
>> everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.
>>
>> Sky
>
> Christmas Eve - Good quality cold cuts & all kinds of olives cheeses etc.
> from the local Italian Deli
>
> Dimitri



Bagna Cauda with heavy Italian Bread.

Peaches, who really misses that dish

In article >,
Sky > wrote:

> For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
> sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
> around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. That
> 'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
> was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
> brought home No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
> everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.
>
> Sky
>
> P.S. There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! (groan &
> giggles!) Those cheese straws still have to be made!

Toast made with pannetone at breakfast. Hrstule, fried ribbon cookies
from Dalmatia, any time through the day.

D.M.

Sky wrote:
>
> For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
> sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
> around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. That
> 'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
> was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
> brought home No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
> everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.
>
> Sky
>
> P.S. There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! (groan &
> giggles!) Those cheese straws still have to be made!
>

We have our herring/pickled beet salad, smoked salmon and shrimp in some
form or 'nother on Christmas Eve. A 'bunte teller'; fancy bowl filled
with biscuits/cookies, oranges, nuts and sweets/chocolates is for the
week, refilled as needed. Then I usually wander around the neighbourhood
to look at the luminarias and lights; sometimes we go in the car if TMU
wants to look. Back home, biscuits and hot chocolate. With that, used to
watch a video 'A Christmas Carol' with George C Scott, but our video
player is dead and we don't have it on DVD

On 23/12/2010 12:58 AM, Sky wrote:
> For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
> sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
> around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. That
> 'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
> was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
> brought home No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
> everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.


We usually get a slow start on the day. The dog gets a walk and we get
cleaned up and dressed, then downstairs for a coffee and to open
presents. We have A late brunch, side bacon, back bacon, eggs, fruit.
The only obligatory food is coffee cake. My son loves the coffee cake
from the better Homes and Gardens children's cookbook.

If we want to snack before dinner there is lots of shortbread and
fruitcake. Turkey is an automatic for dinner. Dessert is the highlight
of the feast; shortbreads, mincemeat tarts and .... Christmas pudding
with caramel sauce.



>
> P.S. There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! (groan &
> giggles!) Those cheese straws still have to be made!
>

On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 17:16:38 -0800, Don Martinich >
wrote:

>In article >,
> Sky > wrote:

>>
>> P.S. There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! (groan &
>> giggles!) Those cheese straws still have to be made!
>
>Toast made with pannetone at breakfast. Hrstule, fried ribbon cookies
>from Dalmatia, any time through the day.


Are these the ones that are cut like ribbons, then twisted and deep
fried and served with powdered sugar? If so, there is a Hungarian
version that is called "love letters". Delicious.

Alex

Christmas Eve was always an Open House at my parents'.

It was the only time all year my dad cooked, but even though they
worked until ~7PM, when friends and relatives arrived, the table
included stewed bacalhau (dried cod),codfish cakes (fish, mashed potato,
eggs and parsley), octopus, baked scallops, and sometimes lobster
medallions. Rice pudding or vermicelli pudding (custard) were often
served or fried sweet bread dough. Red wine, of course.

Dad also made a Portuguese bread that in his province of origin
traditionally was baked to eat on pilgrimages to religious festivals.
It is an Italian-bread type dough, patted flat, rolled jelly-roll style
around chunks of ham and Portuguese smoked sausage and sometimes
prosciutto, then curled into a circle and baked. That was for after
midnight mass when we opened gifts. I make it rarely but our daughter's
version is almost as good as her grandfather's. He would be so proud of
her (he died when she was 18 months old.) I can remember a leg of
prosciutto hanging in our unheated cellar all winter. He would go
downstairs with a plate and a big knife and return with the plate filled
with thinly shaved slices of deliciousness, salty pink cured meat with a
wide rim of creamy fat around each slice.

The holidays bring back many lovely food memories but I am no longer
driven to cook and bake as if food were disappearing from the earth
tomorrow. And yes, it is a relief.

gloria p

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:58:50 -0600, Sky >
wrote:

>For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
>sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
>around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. That
>'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
>was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
>brought home No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
>everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.
>
>Sky
>
>P.S. There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! (groan &
>giggles!) Those cheese straws still have to be made!

The wife and both daughters like the fudge that's (usually) made only
at this time of year. I like the wife's cherry twinks; a pressed
butter cookie with a spot of jam on top. (Rarely cherry; this year
it's strawberry, blueberry, black raspberry, red raspberry, and
apricot.)

Also Rice Krispie treats, chocolate chip cookies, and whatever else
strikes our fancy.

Christmas Eve is often--not always--a crock pot of soup, usually beef
vegetable. Homemade bread or rolls with melting butter. This year it
will be South American Pork Soup, from the BH&G cookbook.
--
Best -- Terry

On 12/23/2010 9:41 AM, Kate Connally wrote:
>
> We don't have a food tradition, per se, but one of our cookie traditions
> is Christmas Roses. These cookies are rolled out and then cut in
> circles of 3 different sizes. Then you put them together with one
> small, one medium, and one large, putting a dab of water in the center
> of each to make them stick together. Then you make 4 cuts around the
> outside almost to the center. This makes the petals. Then you deep
> fry them and they puff up a little and the petals separate. When done
> you dust them with powdered sugar and put a glob of red currant jelly
> in the center. They are beautiful and taste wonderful. I like to eat
> them by pulling off the petals, one by one, and dipping each one in the
> jelly before eating it. Yum.

Please take photos the next time you make these, this sounds just wonderful.

Becca

Sky wrote:
> For Christmas day, it was a tradition to have boiled shrimp & cocktail
> sauce (aka 'shrimp cocktail') as munchies while the gifts & presents
> around the Christmas tree were opened sometime later morning. That
> 'snack' was to tide everyone over until the big Christmas dinner feast
> was served, usually around 1 to 2pm. For Christmas Eve, KFC was usually
> brought home No cooking for dinner was done on Christmas Eve since
> everything was mostly reserved for the next day's big family feast.
>
> Sky
>
> P.S. There was/is always the obligatory 'cheese straws', too! (groan &
> giggles!) Those cheese straws still have to be made!
>
Our pumpkin chiffon pie, of course. Used to be mandelkagers
(cookies) too, but the only tradition my daughter enjoys is the
pie. I only recall straying one year. That was the year my
sister made Craig Claiborne's (hope I remembered how to spell his
name) ginger cheese pie. With the whipped cream and ginger on
top, it looked just like the usual pie.

That is a great pie (well, both are), btw.

--
Jean B.

Peaches wrote:
> Bagna Cauda with heavy Italian Bread.
>
> Peaches, who really misses that dish

Why have you given that up? Oh... LCing?

--
Jean B.