At my mom’s house we always eat lasagna. I’m talkin home made everything. From scratch. I’ve since moved from my home state, but I’ve kept the tradition w/my husband and myself.
At his mom’s house, here in the south, they eat ham, dressing, potato salad, purple hull peas, chicken and dumplings. Things like that.
I prefer the lasagna. ahhh…pasta…gotta love it.
Er. Well, our family tradition is that we volunteer to do Christmas shifts (we have no children) and so our Christmas dinner is generally whatever the hospital cafeteria is doing. Which, given the restrictions placed on them, really isn’t as awful as you’re probably picturing. 
I eat fried shrimp, pasta, fries, salad and cheescake. Makes me salivate just thinking about it.
Dinner is usually cold cuts or shredded chicken.
Breakfast is the special meal for us. My mom makes a very yummy egg casserole. It’s the one time a year she makes it, and the one time a year I eat eggs. One of these days I’ll have to get the recipe, but I know it involves eggs, sausage, cheese, and some bread that gets all soaked up. Can’t wait!
We used to have pot roast and stew on Christmas. For the last few years, though, I’ve been living in another state and working a job that doesn’t give me holidays off, so lately it’s been more along the lines of TV dinners and Budweiser.
My maternal grandmother always makes a huge Christmas feast centering around either chicken or turkey. The only really unusual part is that the place settings include a lottery scratch ticket for each person, which we’re expected to scratch out before eating anything. Nobody has won any significant amount of money yet, of course, but it’s a nice diversion.
Well, we have the standard roast turkey dinner, same as Thanksgiving, except we have crackers and the resulting paper hats. I love seeing my very serious husband wearing a purple or yellow paper crown for an hour!
Like Chavardz said, but there’s also apple strudel. Yummmmm.
Plus booze, plenty of expensive booze, more than my cheap ass will ever buy.
I know this might make me a bad Christian, but I hate getting uo to go to church on the 25th. Why can’t I lay in bed and go to church at say, 7 pm?
My family has always had a traditional turkey dinner at around 3:30 in the afternoon. Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, perogies, cabbage rolls, veggies, pickles. Essentially enough to feed a small army.
Growing up, Christmas dinners at the frog household were basically a repeat of Thanksgiving. Dad worked two jobs, you see, and would always get two turkeys as a bonus at the end of the year.
The best part is the thick homemade noodles cooked in turkey broth, making a nice thick gravy.
Mmmmmm, turkey noodles.
But lately, I’ve been plugging for a new tradition: Big thick t-bones done on the bbq no matter what the weather and homemade margaritas.
Margaritas go very well with Christmas, and luckily my family agrees. (where is the woozy drunk smiley when you need him?)
Our usual family Christmas dinner is a huge stuffed turkey with roast vegetables and all the trimmings (gravy, cranberry sauce etc) in the middle of the day. Then later that evening, we nibble away on a cold spread of baked leg ham, chicken, roast pork and plenty of salads. Christmas here is usually pretty hot, so the cold meat and salad is pretty welcoming.
We then finish off with either hot plum pudding with brandy custard and fresh whipped cream or else a home-made trifle.
Of course, we have the usual copious amounts of alcohol to wash it all down with… Champagne flows freely (especially around me!)
We also have plenty of nibbles for guests who drop in throughout the day (with more booze!).
And yes, we too, have those crazy Christmas bon-bons with the paper hats and the most incredibly pathetic jokes inside.
The last few years though, we’ve got less traditional and end up having just one meal (in the evening) which is a big family bbq with lashings of seafood, steaks and other gourmet delights.
At Grandma’s our traditional dinner is the usual turkey dinner…
Turkey, ham and/or meatballs in gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, parsnips (sometimes), cabbage rolls, buns, gravy, brussel sprouts, pickles (dill and sweet), pickled onions, carrots and beets… that’s just the supper. For dessert we often have two types of pie (apple at least), squares and fruit cake. All of this stuff homemade, some of it frozen or canned with love to be brought out and defrosted or heated and served up.
This is all washed down with copious amounts of wine and coffee.
I get to miss that this year thanks to being pregnant and due to deliver shortly after Christmas and in a completely different town from Grandma’s. This year I get to experience a different tradition with my Mom’s sister and her family.
According to Mom Christmas Eve dinner consists of 12 dishes, none of which have meat or poultry in them… it’s all fish and veggie dishes. I’ve heard of such but never had one myself. Christmas day is a turkey dinner and if it’s anything like their thanksgiving it’s just some turkey, potatoes, veggies of some kind, gravy and this sweet apple/raisin bread stuffing (different but really good) with a pie and ice cream and tea or milk to drink.
Not bad, just different from what I’m used to and I’m gonna miss Grandma’s cooking this year…
Christmas morning:
Smoked salmon with scrambled eggs on toasted bagels with bucks fizz (champagne and orange juice)
Christmas lunch:
Roast chicken with tarragon and lemon, roast potatoes, parsnips, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash with purple sprouting broccolli, peas, mangetout, chestnut stuffing, my mums delicous gravy. Followed by christmas pudding with cream and brandy.
Christmas dinner:
Any leftovers that i’m not too tipsy to wedge between some bread.
The only tradition is: Lots of food!! There is no “Christmas Meal” or special dish that only comes out for the holidays.
My MIL wants to do ribs this year, but they’re pretty pricy for 9 people. So I have no idea what we’ll be having.
In the UK it is pretty standard to have a turkey dinner, though in the past we have had duck and goose (both yuk in my opinion…) once each.
Now living in Japan, my husband hates turkey or chicken which rules that out. We have decided to make our tradition a leg of lamb. It is the only day of the year that I do a roast as it is so expensive (about 40 dollars for a 5lb boneless leg.) We have it with all the turkey dinner trimmings.
He also thinks that Christmas pudding is The Dessert From Hell. So my mum sends me a small one just for me, and he and my kids go mad on "Kurisumasu Keik"i which is sponge cake with strawberries and whipped cream.
StarvingButStrong, you rock. I hope you get good overtime pay that day to thank you for your sacrifice, and that your coworkers who are more likely to be able to spend the holiday with their little ones appreciate what you’re doing.
Our traditional Christmas Eve dinner has been a mix of Norwegian and American traditions. In Norway there are four regional traditions for Christmas dinner. In the North, it’s dead fish; in the West, dead sheep; and in the Southeast and center of the country, dead pig. Fella bilong missus flodnak is from dead pig country. So we have ham as our main dish, because it’s something many Americans have and it’s from a pig. Making sense so far? With it we have sweet potatoes, American-style, and white potatoes with gravy and pickled red cabbage, Norwegian-style. Cranberry sauce, pickled beets, and other relishes round out the meal.
On Christmas Day, we don’t have a firm tradition; it’s just us (me, fbmf, and our two sons), so we have whatever special something tickles our fancy that particular year. We’ve had lasagne, we’ve had a big homemade pizza, and so on. This year I think we’re leaning toward lasagne again.
Well because it’s Christmas I will probably have the baked beans in ham sauce on my toast. No this is not a joke.
Old Polish Traditional Christmas Eve Dinner – AKA Wigilia.
Yopu’re supposed to fast all day, or at the very least abstain from meat. Dinner is supposed to start when the first star of evening appears, but it’s usually when you can get everyone to the table. As many relatives as possible are seated around a table, which may be artificially enhanced if necessary.
Dinner starts with the breaking of the oplatek (pl/ oplatki), a rectangulat communion-style wafer usually embossed with Christmas scenes. It’s pronounced “op-WAT-ekk”, and lies on a bed of straw. Everyone makes a wish for the new year as the break off and eat a piece.
Dinner commences, starting with Borscht, which I loathe with a passion. The rest of the meal is meatless – pierogi and blini (Slavic Ravioli-type food, stuffed with all and sundry), fish, salad, shrimp, bread, dessert.
Then we all exchange presents.
English (this is just my family, but think it’s fairly common):
Meat:
Turkey
Bacon rashers (cooked on turkey’s back)
Chipolata sausages (cooked around turkey)
Veg:
Roast potatoes
Mashed potatoes
Carrots
Brussels sprouts
Peas
Condiments:
Turkey gravy
Stuffing (usually sage & onion, and another one based on sausagemeat)
Bread sauce (traditional English sauce made of bread & milk and seasoned with onion and cloves)
Redcurrant jelly
In Ireland in my experience, the traditional meal is much the same, usually minus the bacon, sausages, and bread sauce, but always with the addition of a large glazed ham, often served cold.
I can’t wait!?!?!
I should mention that I myself will be doing a hybrid Irish/English version, with the ham, without peas, and with roast carrots and parsnips.