Mmm, love tourtiere!

We're also doing cheese fondue. Anyone have suggestions for light appetizers?

We also do cheese fondue, with chocolate fondue for dessert. Great for dipping xmas cookies, along with the more typical pound cake and fruit.

We have french dip sandwiches waiting in the crockpot for after Christmas Eve services at 4 pm. Then cookies and hot chocolate for dessert.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Foie gras after mass.

The holidays are worth it just for foie gras.

OMG. That's just disgusting. Nothing is worth Foie Gras, nothing, unless you enjoy suffering.

FYI, there is ethical foie gras available. If you're killing an animal anyway for the holidaya (chicken, goose, cow, pig), the non force fed stuff is not that bad.

Anonymous wrote:
Foie gras after mass.

The holidays are worth it just for foie gras.

OMG. That's just disgusting. Nothing is worth Foie Gras, nothing, unless you enjoy suffering.

Fiolaoffers Feast of the Seven Fishes each Christmas Eve.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm French Canadian so we'll have typical Reveillon fare- tourtière (meat pie), ragout (pork hock stew), oysters, Cornish hens, roasted chestnuts.. Lots and lots of wine, a fruit plate, a cheese plate, and of course, a buche de Noel.

We also open presents Christmas Eve (DH is German) so the nice thing is sleeping off all the food and wine the following morning.

This sounds amazing to me and fairly exotic. Is Christmas Eve the big feast for you, or is Christmas Day even bigger?

What do you do on the day if you open presents on Christmas Eve? Mass?

It's probably not at all as exotic as it sounds. It's just delightful chaos for the evening.

Christmas morning is slow moving time. Mass is usually on Christmas Eve. As a child, we usually went to midnight mass, but now usually go to the 7pm Family mass. You have Reveillon after mass, so it goes on pretty late into the night. Children usually get tired around 10-11, and go to bed, to be woken up shortly after so they don't miss trying to see Santa out he window. As a child, Santa used to come when we were at mass. So, presents are opened, more wine is consumed, and it's all very chaotic and fun. You don't go to bed until the wee hours, so Christmas morning is a delightfully sleepy time. Kids have their presents already, so parents can sleep in while they play. Eventually everyone gets up, and in our house it's breakfast with fruit and fresh bread. The day itself looks much like any typical Christmas house.. Everyone in PJs, adults spiking their coffee with liqueur. Etc. we still do a traditional Christmas dinner of bird and fixings on Christmas Day.

It sounds weird, but I was so happy to find out that DH celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve... It always seemed so weird to me to wait until Christmas for the real party!

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious about the Feast of the Seven Fishes. I'm not Italian, but would love to try it some time (or at least be invited to it), for the big family meal experience.

Is it a set menu, i.e., does everyone everywhere eat the same 7 fish dishes in the same order? Or does it vary by family tradition? Is there a free form -- can you pick your 7 favorite seafoods?

Fill me in. For someone who is making it, what are the 7 dishes you're doing?

There are no rules that I am aware of.

Each person is in charge of something. My aunt (who is younger than me ... that is a Catholic thing) sends out a list and everybody signs up for something that they are in charge of.

We have a frier on the deck and the men man the frier (we bring them drinks)

Around 2pm

We fry shrimp (1), oysters (2) and calamari (3).
Then we have oysters on the 1/2 shell
We also have a tradition of making fried dough. We get pizza dough, the kids put cheese in it, close it up and take it to the fry guys. YUMMMY!

Around 5pm

Then we have red sauce with seafood shrimp/squid/scallops(4) over pasta
We have scungilli (aka conch(5)) - It is usually in a sauce or some sort over pasta.
We have crab (6) stuffed rockfish (7) and a white fish with butter (8)
On a good year we have lobster (9)
Pickled Octopus (10)

Some fishes repeat and there are more than 7 because not everybody like conch, for example.

We have sides like brussel sprouts and salad. We also have desserts ... if you can even imagine.

There are about 10 people that contribute to the food and everybody is in charge of something. It is near impossible for 1 family to do it all. I am in charge of the fried dough.

You could simplify which we have had to do the years we could not be with the family (for example, I gave birth Christmas week). We made a red sauce with 5 different fishes in it. (shrimp, squid, scallops, whitefish, mussles) we had oyster stew and crab cakes. That is 7 fishes. Be creative, the 7 fishes we do it a huge amount of work, but it does not have to be.

We always do meat and cheese fondue. It's a nice slow dinner.

We always go out to eat on Christmas Eve -usually Chinese. We go to church, drive around looking at lights, then come home and have dessert and open one gift. Always Christmas pajamas.

Shrimp and grits

Lobster!

4:00 mass
Go to the 5 star resort next to our parish for a cocktail and to look at the giant gingerbread house
Go to a friends house for heavy appetizers and dessert

Anonymous wrote:I'm French Canadian so we'll have typical Reveillon fare- tourtière (meat pie), ragout (pork hock stew), oysters, Cornish hens, roasted chestnuts.. Lots and lots of wine, a fruit plate, a cheese plate, and of course, a buche de Noel.

We also open presents Christmas Eve (DH is German) so the nice thing is sleeping off all the food and wine the following morning.

This sounds amazing to me and fairly exotic. Is Christmas Eve the big feast for you, or is Christmas Day even bigger?

What do you do on the day if you open presents on Christmas Eve? Mass?

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious about the Feast of the Seven Fishes. I'm not Italian, but would love to try it some time (or at least be invited to it), for the big family meal experience.

Is it a set menu, i.e., does everyone everywhere eat the same 7 fish dishes in the same order? Or does it vary by family tradition? Is there a free form -- can you pick your 7 favorite seafoods?

Fill me in. For someone who is making it, what are the 7 dishes you're doing?

+1, please tell us all about it.