Cancelled travel plans and need a plan B for Christmas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Order a Buche de Noel for Xmas Eve — Praline, Tout de Sweet, Tatte, Fresh Baguette, and Patisserie Poupon.

We’ve also borrowed an Icelandic tradition and have a secret-Santa style book exchange early on Xmas Eve. So it’s a day of books and cake! Highly recommend.

Depending on how old DC is, you could order a Raclette grill from Amazon. (If DC is a preschooler, I’d skip this plan — attractive nuisance!!). This is our Plan A! Procurement (cheese, cornichon, potatoes, proscuitto, veg) — but no actual cooking involved.

Thank u! Doing the Buche de Noel and the book/PJs

[Anonymous]

Christmas Eve, play Christmas music, bake cookies (buy refrigerated cookie dough from the grocery store), drink hot chocolate, buy or make a charcuterie board to snack on. Open a present or two.

Christmas morning open presents, eat cinnamon rolls from the bakery. Call family or Zoom to wish them a Merry Christmas. Dinner can be a Honeybaked Ham, salad, baked potato and veggie, dinner rolls and a dessert you have purchased.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Posters, please explain a raclette to this Np! I looked it up on Amazon and it was described as a tabletop grill. I don’t get why this is a fun/ festive way to eat. Are specific foods cooked on it? Does everyone sit around it watching the food cook? I am clueless but very intrigued and would love more details. Thanks!

You sit around and talk and drink and assemble your own combinations of ingredients. Everyone has their own little pan for cheese (and the meat/veggie grill part is shared — we use a few sets of small tongs to manage that part). It’s a play with your food kind of moment (cf fondue). And works for groups that include vegetarians and supertasters as well as omnivores. Basically, it’s leisurely and communal (yet customized by each individual).

Thank you for explaining - it sounds fun! So you grill your veggies and meat and then dip into your own pan of cheese? Clever! Do you eat skewered like fondue, or put on bread or crackers?

[Anonymous]

My family does basically appetizers for dinner in Christmas. It started when I was little and my Dad was a resident so he had to be at the hospital on Christmas. We had to be flexible about dinner so we just prepped a bunch of snacks we could have waiting.

We still do it though and it's a lot of fun.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think op said how old the kid is. If little, I would do something fun for breakfast like chocolate chip pancakes. Do one of the drive through Christmas light display at night with Christmas music (bring snacks in car because some have waits). You can track Santa on the norad site and learn geography that way.
For dinner, filet mignon is crazy easy to cook and will feel so indulgent. Rub with salt and pepper, Sear it on each side in butter and pop in oven to lfinish. You can pick up nice bread or a potato side dish at one of the grocery places, and make a salad with fancy cheese and fruit. And just buy dessert or make cookies from mix with sprinkles, or do hot fudge candy cane sundaes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Posters, please explain a raclette to this Np! I looked it up on Amazon and it was described as a tabletop grill. I don’t get why this is a fun/ festive way to eat. Are specific foods cooked on it? Does everyone sit around it watching the food cook? I am clueless but very intrigued and would love more details. Thanks!

You sit around and talk and drink and assemble your own combinations of ingredients. Everyone has their own little pan for cheese (and the meat/veggie grill part is shared — we use a few sets of small tongs to manage that part). It’s a play with your food kind of moment (cf fondue). And works for groups that include vegetarians and supertasters as well as omnivores. Basically, it’s leisurely and communal (yet customized by each individual).

Thank you for explaining - it sounds fun! So you grill your veggies and meat and then dip into your own pan of cheese? Clever! Do you eat skewered like fondue, or put on bread or crackers?

Usually on small roasted (or steamed) potatoes and/or bread. So you have a dinner (more like salad-sized) plate as well. The melted cheese usually is very easy to pour out of the little pans (but you can also buy plastic scraping tools for them— we rarely use ours). My brother and his family do nacho-ish versions sometimes. We experiment with different kinds of melty cheese (e.g. fontina, Comte, Havarti as well as French/Swiss/American-made Raclette) and charcuterie (prosciutto, Rosemary ham, capicola) depending on who is in the mix.