Holiday foods: What food would it not be Christmas if you were without it?

I have Scottish blood and German blood in me, but I'm third generation living in the US, and as far as making traditional European dishes, we don't really make those.

Shrimp cocktail and Lil Smokies in BBQ sauce. Both of these appetizers are devoured within minutes after the guests arrive. Mom also sets out a cheese plate with different types of cheese cubes, sweet and spicy mustard, and a port wine cheese ball and whole grain crackers. There's also a relish tray with different vegetables and ranch dressing for dipping.

I couldn't live without the spiral ham at Christmas, and we also have turkey. I eat more of the spiral ham because of being overwhelmed by Thanksgiving turkey leftovers. But our family thought it would be nice to have both at Christmas. My mom makes this special glaze to put on the ham that is just awesome (I'm drooling now that I'm thinking about it).

As far as side dishes go we also have scalloped potatoes with onions, baked pineapple, sweet potato casserole, and dinner would be NOTHING without the green bean casserole, and homemade sage stuffing. My mom enjoys making homemade bread and rolls in her bread machine. Her specialty is the banana nut bread, or the cranberry-orange bread. She's going to start making those tonight because the yeast has to rise and the dough has to proof over the next day or so.

We have so many desserts we're going to be eating sweets until February :) Between my mom and myself we've made like 16 different kinds of cookies. I enjoy cooking, but baking sweets is really my specialty especailly at Christmas. I've treid to make fruit cake in the past but it didn't turn out so well. I wanted to make that a tradition, but to me it just seemed way too hard to make.

We have the traditonal sugar cookies with the red and green sprinkles, ginger creams with red and green sugar frosting, Candy cane cookies, 123 Lemon cookies, the Peanut-butter blossoms with the Hershey Kisses, Holiday Snickerdoodles, Cherry Cobbler Cookies, and Thumbprint Cookies with Cherry or Mint Jelly. Those are just the eight different kinds that I have made. My mom made the other eight kinds and I have no idea what she's made. My younger sister makes a triple chocolate cake from scratch, and that's a meal within itself. My aunt likes to bring little cheesecake tarts, and she also makes homemade candy.

This dinner is a tradition as far back as I can remember as a child and when my grandmother started making Christmas dinner. My great grandmother started the ham and turkey tradition, and then passed it on to my grandmother, and then passed it on to my mom, and soon it'll be me. Now I'm drooling, very hungry, and I'm going to eat lunch now. Merry Christmas :)

We are very American also: Canadian French, Irish and Native American. We make a homemade cranberry sauce that is not very good but my cousin made it in girl scouts (25 years ago!) and it is now a tradition. Always turkey per mom, with the giblets finely chopped and added to the gravy. I have to make the mashed potatoes because I cream them and no one else seems to know the recipe (skim milk , sour cream, and butter)? We also have butternut squash and creamed pearl onions. The desert is usually cookies,(chocolate chip, peanut butter anything, and sugar of course) and mom has to have her minced meat pie at least once a year. And I can't forget all the condiments that must be on the table every year for some reason; bread and butter pickles mix, gherkins, green olives, black olives, and jellied cranberry sauce, all in moms Crystal passed down from her mom. Also, everything is served in moms old depression glass wear.

I can't wait until my granddaughter is old enough to learn and appreciate all this.

Again you have asked a great question, thank you and Merry Christmas!

My moms homemade fruit salad

My moms burnt crescent rolls-She always forgets about them every year so we all have to scrap the bottom off so we can eat them.

My Great, Great, Great, Grandma's peanut butter and sugar cookies

My moms Fruit Punch Ham-It isn't very good but she made it one year as a joke and now it has became a tradition and we would miss it if she made it any other way.

well, i'm slavic/hungarian on my dad's side and my mother is a WWII bride from cornwall england. one of favorites was my grandmothers fruit and nut rolls very similar to baklava only better. my mother would start making her fruitcake about febuary or march and pull them down once a month to drizzle them with brandy until the holidays. also plum pudding was a big attention getter done much the same way, made mid year and drizzled with brandy, then right before we sat down to have supper, she'd steam it so it was nice and hot. if she wasn't cooking, i was usually tasked with cooking a standing rib in the smoker, along with yorkshire pudding and lots of gravy. sides were always roasted potatos and carrots. the years we didn't want the standing rib, a big ham in the smoker or a fried turkey. this year, i think the lady and i are going to stick with traditional southern fare, greens with ham hocks, a ham, sweet taters and lots of corn bread. we'll stick with our usual pecan and custard pies.

Gingerbread

A ginger bread house and fruit cake

Lussebullar, pepparkakor, knäck and ischoklad(ice chocolate).

its weird but my grany makes pigs'n a blanket and thats a Christmas tradition weird i koe but i love it