My wife has taken to volunteering our home for the Christmas Eve dinner (my brother will be hosting for Christmas itself). She has told everyone that she plans to do something ‘fun’ for dinner since the following day will have the more formal ham/turkey/whatever.
Unfortunately she and I have no idea what to do for this fun meal. The details:
can be held at a formal dining table or a more casual ‘stand around’ format
there will be about a dozen of us
with the exception of one two-year old child, everyone else will be an adult, ranging from early 30s - late 60s
the wife and I love to cook, and are competent at it, but are by no means experts (my last dish made was the corn pudding from the Barefoot Contessa that I had gotten from here and it came out perfectly!)
Doing a dress up party, like a luau or a murder mystery party crossed my mind, but getting people to dress up on Christmas Eve (especially when some are coming from out of state) seems to be a bit much and out of theme. The wife had mentioned doing ‘do it yourself’ taco stations, but that too seems to be a bit out of whack (not so much the Mexican food thing, which is fine, but having everyone stand in line to make their own tacos).
I am getting desperate, and come to you all for ideas. What would YOU do in this situation?
Hmmm … I was thinking of a “make your own pizza” thing, followed by a sundae bar, but if you’re uncomfortable with the taco idea, you probably wouldn’t like those, either.
Something my brother-in-law’s mother (now passed away) used to do is a “junk supper.” She would set out a bunch of snack foods and everybody could eat whatever they wanted. It’s now been passed on to my family, since my mom wanted to continue the tradition for my niece and nephew that their other grandma started. You could, of course, have healthy snacks (cheese and crackers, veggies and dip) in addition to just the “junk.” Perfect for an evening of standing around, visiting, and “grazing” as we like to call it.
Mr2U and I have done this a few times in the past, and all we’ve done is monstrous (I mean A LOT!) amounts of appetizers and finger foods, different (adult) punches (festive holiday ones - I’ve got some good recipes at home if you’re interested - I can get them to you tomorrow) and we run the Rankin-Bass Christmas Shows that I have on videotape. When those are over, we crank up the stereo with Christmas songs. That’s about it - and it IS fun because it isn’t formal. Hope that helps…
By Christmas Eve, people just want to hang out and talk, so a buffet of some sort that people can pick over is nice. The folks I have Christmas Eve with every year get a Honeybaked Ham, and put that out with a bunch of rolls and breads and cheese; they make Italian Wedding Soup; and everything else is whatever whoever wants to bring (deviled eggs, crudites, lox, calzones, etc. – it can get pretty various).
If you don’t want to ask people to bring things, do the same thing, but with you doing the side dishes – sandwich fixin’s and then snacky type stuff as well.
Our family always did steak and champagne on Christmas Eve. Perhaps a cookout menu (fun since it’s the middle of the winter) and you can always do more interesting side dishes if you feel like “showing off” a little.
Lasagna. My father started this Christmas Eve tradition years ago in my family and we look forward to it every year. Lasagna is relatively easy to make, allows a lot of cooking creativity, and feeds a lot of people. Add some spinach and with the tomato sauce, you’ll have a very festive dish.
How about one of those murder / mystery parties? The ones you buy at WH Smith (or whomever) with atrocious pseudonyms. They’re clichéd and cheesy but actually great fun.
My family’s always ordered pizza on Christmas Eve. I’m not sure where the tradition started but I suspect it provided a treat for the kids and a respite for the adults.
We order pizza, nosh on random other snacks and pop in the ol’ standard White Christmas. sigh Happy times for me.
But in your case - I think the previously mentioned taco bar or make your own pizza bar thing is a great idea! It allows everyone to be casual and mingle and just hang out.
With my mother and her parents being there, I don’t want to even think about this one…
too late, someone get me some bleach for my brain please!
(Actually, thanks for all the feedback so far. I like the finger foods one as it can mix the convenience of pizza rolls with our enjoyment of cooking for ‘real’ appetizers)
I’m not so crazy on the tacos, but the pizza MIGHT work with enough variety in ingredients. We have a double oven plus a couple of pizza stones so we can make many at once. I pointed the wife to this thread and we’ll talk about it here in the next day or two (so feel free to keep adding more ideas!).
My family does lasagna on Christmas Eve, too. If you don’t like that plan, you could do what my parents do for New Years Eve–soups and sandwiches. By then, everyone’s utterly ill at the thought of richer fare, so we have a few different types of soups and set out sandwich makings, chips, dips, deviled eggs, whatever. It’s all buffet style and very low key, and it’s wonderful. If you wanted to dress it up a bit, you could have Santa hats and noisemakers and such.
That’s pretty much what I’m doing for our Christmas party–soup and sandwiches and various snackables, with stockings for the Secret Santa exchange and goodie bags for everyone. I’m just getting a thing of those little brown paper bags at the dollar store and hauling out the paints and the Christmas stamps and going to town.
You’ll also want games. The louder and more boisterous, the better. Our family has some wonderful times playing Outburst and Guesstures.
We go almost potluck, with my mom doing the tamales and sweets and my sisters and I doing the rest. Since we’ve all married wildly outside our Hispanic birth culture, we bring varied dishes such as sweet potato pie, cream gravy, phillipino eggrolls and yeast bread. The extended family gets a kick out of the ‘non-traditional’ fare and my husband is quickly gaining fans of his California cuisine–you’d think no one had ever seen sun-dried tomato pesto before!
Our Christmas Eve tradition won’t help you, but I’m gonna share it anyway, because it’s the best meal of the year.
Years ago, my family went out with my grandparents every Christmas Eve. When our traditional restarant burned down, we decided to move it in. This tradition has grown to include all the cousins, aunts uncles, etc.
The menu is always the same.
Shrimp cocktail
Shrimp scampi
Crab legs (with butter warmers at every place)
Wild rice
Green bean casserole
Biscuits
Dessert is strawberry trifle
Guesstures is similar to Charades, and Outburst is a game in which a team is given a category and must come up with the 10 prelisted answers in a set amount of time.
Good call on the party games. I collect German style board games and have a few party titles that go over very well, particulary Times Up, Werewolf, and Apples to Apples.
My parents always host Christmas Eve with members of both sides of our family as well as some friends and neighbors attending. We usually have lasagna, meatballs, spanakopita, pierogi, salad, and dessert. It’s my favorite part of Christmas.
