Christmas Eve dinner

[Anonymous]

What are you cooking for Christmas Eve? I’ve dabbled in a few different things over the years and am wondering if others have ideas. Church is at 4; i have youngish kids, would like minimal cooking when we get back from church. I’ve tried slow cooker recipes and they are meh…. Am thinking now another option is freezing something and heating it up when I get back? I did bolognaise last year. It was okay. Ideas?

[Anonymous]

Lasagna

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lasagna

Same. So easy. With good bread, heavy apps, Christmas cookies and wine

[Anonymous]

I'd love ideas too! We have a lot going on smack in the middle of dinnertime - I'm hoping to take kids to the children's church service at 5:30, while my husband drives an hour to pick up a visiting relative at 7. There's no way we'll be able to have a sit down dinner together, I need to figure out something we can keep hot or reheat quickly for the adults around 8, but is still nice enough to seem festive or special for our visitor.

Lasagna was one I thought of, but I don't know if it counts as a nice holiday meal to most people?

[Anonymous]

We do appetizers and more appetizers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd love ideas too! We have a lot going on smack in the middle of dinnertime - I'm hoping to take kids to the children's church service at 5:30, while my husband drives an hour to pick up a visiting relative at 7. There's no way we'll be able to have a sit down dinner together, I need to figure out something we can keep hot or reheat quickly for the adults around 8, but is still nice enough to seem festive or special for our visitor.

Lasagna was one I thought of, but I don't know if it counts as a nice holiday meal to most people?

Definitely not. But does it need to?

[Anonymous]

For us, Christmas Eve is always Feast of the Seven Fishes, a popular Italian American tradition for xmas eve.

We will usually have 1 main "cooked" dish, like cioppino or linguine with clam sauce, which can be made in advance. Everything else is from the market, including cracked crab, chilled shrimp, smoked salmon, crab cakes, caviar.

It feels very festive.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/12/07/where-to-find-feasts-of-the-seven-fishes-around-dc-for-christmas-eve/

[Anonymous]

Baked ziti, garlic bread, salad, cannoli.

[Anonymous]

We get take out Chinese food after going to church. That way we don’t have to worry about cooking or too much in the way of clean up.

It’s become a tradition over two, now going on three generations in our family. We don’t do take out very often, so it’s a fun and festive treat for us.

[Anonymous]

We do one crock pot of traditional chili, one crock pot of vegan chili, cornbread muffins and salad. Everything can be made ahead and no fuss after church. Dessert is Christmas cookies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We do appetizers and more appetizers

Same here. We do family gifts on Christmas Eve, so the kids are too excited to eat a real dinner anyway. So I just do a plate of veggies and a bunch of froze appetizers and they nibble at whatever catches their fancy.

[Anonymous]

Spaghetti and meatballs and Caesar salad. We usually make the meatballs early in the week so it’s super easy the day of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd love ideas too! We have a lot going on smack in the middle of dinnertime - I'm hoping to take kids to the children's church service at 5:30, while my husband drives an hour to pick up a visiting relative at 7. There's no way we'll be able to have a sit down dinner together, I need to figure out something we can keep hot or reheat quickly for the adults around 8, but is still nice enough to seem festive or special for our visitor.

Lasagna was one I thought of, but I don't know if it counts as a nice holiday meal to most people?

NP. We save our “nice holiday meal” for Christmas Day, in the evening. Christmas Eve is about getting to and from church, which is usually a 6 p.m. service or so. So you eat chili beforehand and have Christmas cookies after. There’s also setting up for Santa to deal with. I save our holiday meal for the day we have to fully relax, stay home and take our time.

[Anonymous]

I'm trying out the beef tenderloin meal kit from Costco. It comes with creamed spinach and scallop potatoes. I'll add a caesar salad for the starter. Dessert will be a buche de noel from a bakery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying out the beef tenderloin meal kit from Costco. It comes with creamed spinach and scallop potatoes. I'll add a caesar salad for the starter. Dessert will be a buche de noel from a bakery.

My family does essentially the same thing. We grill steaks with a marinade that has a family history, have easy sides of baked potato and salad, and end with a buche de Noel from Whole Foods. Add some red wine and Santa is happy.