Christmas: food

Icing fondant snowman

It is amazing the wide variety of traditions that different families have. Over the years I have taken on some that I grew up with, tried to incorporate J's and have tweaked them over the years to suit us. I have also learnt not to get quite so picky with creating a perfect day!

A few years ago I joined a discussion email list that was a count down for getting organised for the Christmas period. Along the way the people there made me reconsider my very fixed ideas about how Christmas day should be. One lady had asked her children what they wanted to eat on the day and the reply was pizza for breakfast. An unusual request but an easy one to satisfy!

Christmas does not have to follow the same routine every year, how boring would that be? But over time we have settled into our own little traditions. For breakfast it has to be (thanks to my brother-in-law for introducing our family to it) smoked salmon with scrambled eggs. So not my cup of tea but one relished by everybody else in the family. Growing up we never had any special breakfast food, thinking about it we probably skipped it thanks to a tummy filled with chocolate coins and fruit from Father Christmas.

Until recently we always had Christmas lunch as the main meal of the day though it was not unknown for it to be served as late as three. But I hate the post Christmas meal sloth that envelops us all. By switching our main meal to the evening we don't feel quite so lazy and we can usually shoehorn a necessary walk into the day at some point. Lunch is now a simple meal of bread and meat/cheese.

Whilst I feel that we shouldn't cling on to old traditions too hard I do love a roast meal. I don't do a lot of courses, just straight into the main followed by a pud. I don't mound the table too highly with food, it tends to be slightly fancier than usual rather than lots of it. This year our sprouts were sautéed with butter and bacon and were absolutely delicious, I highly recommend this. Another family favourite is boiled carrots, drained and lightly cooked with chopped crystallised ginger and a little honey. The meal was finished with our home made pudding served with cream whipped with a drop of baileys in it.

Which reminds me. I must never, never, never purchase another Christmas pudding. Our home made one was wonderful despite my concerns over the lack of variety of dried fruit to go into it. Much less dense than any from the shops and well worth the effort. Not just slightly better but a hundred times better! It's been a few years since I had last made them so I had forgotten just how different a home made pudding is. If you haven't made any this year get baking now so that you have a wonderfully mature one for next Christmas.

Naturally we also had lots of treats and snacks though few of these were touched on the day. As I seem to often remind people, the twelve days of Christmas feasting start on Christmas day. Which means that there is still plenty of yumminess to tide us into the New Year.