Dunno about the bourbon but apricot is good with ham. An easy way to do this is to start with apricot preserves.
I made all the Christmas cookies this year:
Gingerbread Little Cakes
Mocha Truffle Cookies
Sugar Cookies
Peanut Butter Blossoms
Plus I did Sugared Cranberries , and will be doing Easy Cinnamon Bread .
I might do Spiced Almonds for when my parents’ come for New Year’s/my birthday. We’ll see.
Susan
My cooking tasks for the holidays:
Last Sunday: Thom Ka with tofu for my partner’s party.
Yesterday: Fruit salad with mango, raspberries, and ginger for a solstice party.
Tomorrow: Assist in the Christmas Eve meatloaf cook-off–three families. Three meatloaves. Who will be champion??
Well, you know, I do what I can. Glad they were successful! I’ve yet to make them, but am looking forward to it.
I made the bread pudding from my post earlier- it was really good. I made two, and had some from one of them right away. It was good, but still kind of cubey and separated. The second one I took to a dinner and reheated in the oven, and it had melded into a cake-like pudding and it was divine. Foodgasm-inducing. The whiskey sauce really tasted like whiskey, which is a flavor I’m not all that fond of, so next time I might use something different for the sauce, maybe dulce de leche.
It’s been rough - forcing the pain au chocolat down in the morning, staying warm from the bitter Paris cold by countless little cups of vin chaud, sheltering from the elements by taking in the midnight mass at Notre-Dame…
The canard à l’orange was a success - only trouble was the gravy wasn’t as brown as it should have been, since microwave ovens don’t produce brownie bits at the bottom of the pan the way a conventional oven does. Just one more indignity to put up with… 
This sounds pretty much like my Scots grannie’s recipe, except we use golden sugar instead of confectioner’s sugar. It’s one of our most long-standing Christmas traditions in my family.
I made Yo-Yos for Mum. She didn’t want me to spend a lot on her this year, and Yo-Yos are her favourite.
Yo-Yos
175g softened butter
1/4 cup icing icing sugar (aka confectioner’s sugar)
3-4 drops vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup custard powder
Preheat oven to 180C. Cream the butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy. Add vanilla. Sift flour and custard powder together and then stir into creamed mixture. Roll teaspoonfuls of mixture into balls and place on oven tray, then flatten with a fork. Bake for 15-20 minutes, do not allow to brown. When cool, join pairs together with filling.
Filling
50g softened butter
1/2 cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar
2 tablespoons custard powder
Beat all ingredients until well combined.
urgh Too. Much Food.
Made some more Glögi and drank it. Roasted the prime rib, boiled the potatoes, steamed the asparagus. Sliced off about a 1" slice of bovid musculature, had a couple of the red potatoes, several spears of asparagus. Put the Yorkshire pudding in the oven. Ate too slow. YP got a bit dark. First time for everything though, eh? Still tasted good.
Now I’m on the nog and brandy.
I cooked Christmas dinner for 12 this year. We had butternut squash soup with herb butter (served in ceramic pumpkins), sorghum-glazed baked country ham, pickled peach gelatin mold, kale with bacon/onions/garlic, three bean salad, and boulangere potatoes. For dessert I made ginger springerle and a pecan spice cake in the shape of a turkey. My sister brought banana rum cake, gingerbread, and peppermint shortbread. A brother brought mini pumpkin and ginger cheesecakes.
Another brother cooked Christmas Eve dinner. He made sweet potato soup with shrimp and apple (delicious!), prime rib with horseradish sauce, roasted squash slices, shredded brussels sprouts with bacon, silky mashed potatoes, and a sumptous trifle for dessert.
I’m really full.