Friday, December 23, 2005
Christmas Dinner and Stuff
For me, dinner on the holidays has always been at the traditional noon dinner time; after 12:00 and before 2:00. I’ve always thought it an oddity to encounter people who had holiday dinner as supper rather than lunch. Yet when I do these things at my own house, with my own family, they tend to be later, if not fully into the evening. Tomorrow when we have dinner at my sister’s, the time specified for being there was 1:00 - 1:30.
For Christmas it is normally turkey and/or ham. With so many of us, sometimes it’s both. Almost always turkey, at any rate. Rarely it can be a roast beef or a pork roast as a secondary meat. Then stuffing, mashed potato, gravy, butternut squash, sometimes sweet potato, of late most likely in the form of an apple & sweet potato dish, turnip, and maybe something green like broccoli. This year it’s going to be broccoli casserole. Oh, we can’t forget the cranberry sauce! Toto, I don’t think we’re in California anymore. If we’re having ham, sometimes there’s raisin sauce, though making that was my late grandfather’s specialty. There can also be cranberry relish and pickled beets. Normally there are rolls.
Afterward, when we eventually can stand to add anything to our bellies, there are always various pies, maybe some cookies or squares, sometimes other odd items like the “cranberry pie” that’s not very pie-like. Pies are usually pumpkin, apple, and one or two other kinds.
Favorite Christmas carol? That sounds familiar...