Hope everyone's Christmas was festive and peaceful!
We did a mini-Thanksgiving because the s.o. missed it so -- we were away and attended a vegetarian family Thanksgiving with a pretty non-traditional menu. So for the two of us last night it was roast chicken (with thyme and lemon), mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, steamed Brussels sprouts, and dressing (bread-rice-onions-celery-apples-currants-herbs). Gift dark chocolates for dessert.
The Christmas menu can be anything at all. Growing up, it was often roast beef, with scalloped or au gratin potatoes, Harvard beets, and Sally Lunns (yeast rolls); more times than not, the meal began with oyster stew. During Christmas and into the new year, there'd always be a ham (this is western Virginia; the ham in question is the cured, very salty kind, to be eaten in small amounts with biscuits), This year a relative sent us a package of very thinly sliced Virginia ham that's perfect for us -- enough to enjoy over the week as a pre-eggnog snack, the tastes bringing back my childhood at holiday time, but not so much that it would overwhelm us, like a real ham. Our hams threatened to overwhelm my parents and me back then, too, but when that happened my mother would cut up the remains and freeze them. She'd use them in the summer when cooking green beans or greens from my father's garden.
A dessert tradition was plum pudding, acquired from our church bazaar early in December and ritually soaked in brandy. One year we even set it aflame successfully!