Christmas 2018

Christmas is my favorite holiday, both for the festivities specific to the season and for the abundance of happy memories, mostly involving wildly happy and excited children, that it provides. This year  we kept it going for the full 12 days, culminating in a "Second Christmas" with gifts and a celebratory meal on Twelfth Night. Next year, we'll add a viewing of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night to our traditions.

The Christmas morning gift orgy

Santa wuz here

Oreo gets his Christmas stocking

Snowy gets her Christmas stocking

We always have three main Christmas meals -- a Christmas Eve fondue, brunch on Christmas morning (after unwrapping presents), and Christmas dinner. After years of trial and error, I've found some recipes that all of my family members, including the most finicky eaters, enjoy.

Christmas Eve: I fell in love with cheese fondue when I lived and worked in Switzerland, and we start with a Neuchatel fondue (I use the linked recipe minus the kirsch.) We dip bread and vegetables in the cheese sauce, and we usually have a couple of salads on the sides. After the first course, the kids go out to look at Christmas lights while I prepare dessert, which is always chocolate fondue (just chocolate and cream) with marshmallows and fruit.

Christmas Eve fondue

Christmas Brunch: We always have an Oven Pear Pancake, made with beautiful Oregon pears from a Harry and David's gift basket my wonderful mother-in-law sends us every Christmas, along with a few sides (for example, Danish pastries, scrambled egg, croissants, fruit, and cinnamon rolls.)

Gift basket yumminess

Christmas Dinner: After many years of vainly trying to find a soup that all of the picky eaters in my family would eat, I finally hit the jackpot last Thanksgiving. I wanted a Thanksgiving soup that incorporated "the three sisters" -- the Native American staples of corn, squash, and beans. This suggestion was initially received with absolute horror due to the inclusion of the dread squash, but since the ingredients are so finely pureed, nobody was any the wiser and, in part because it's rather bland, everyone loved the dish. In fact they all liked it so much that it is now my go-to soup for celebratory meals. Here it is:


Three Sisters Soup:

Ingredients:

1 onion, diced
about a cup of butternut squash (frozen or fresh)
2 cups frozen corn
1 can white kidney beans, rinsed and drained
Seasoned salt of choice
Vegetable broth (I usually use Massel powder and add water)

Place the first five ingredients in an Instant Pot Ace, fill with vegetable broth to within about two inches of the top, press the button that says "SOUP", and all will be ready in about half an hour.

For the main course, our staples are Quorn Meatless Roast with cranberry sauce, mashed potato, vegan white bean gravy, a couple of salads, and four vegetable sides prepared in a quadruple-pot slow cooker (which makes the meal preparation very easy), usually accompanied by freshly baked rolls and a few other bits and pieces. For our salads, I like this beet, onion, and arugula salad, and this Mandarin Spinach Salad with Candied Pecans (I usually use fresh orange segments rather than canned mandarins.) With the main course, we also have corn muffins and orange and cranberry muffins served with honey butter.

Christmas dinner

We've started adding a couple of cheese boards to our holiday meal. Since Paige has become something of a cheese connoisseur, we usually pick up the cheeses at The Wine Seller, a local liquor store that offers cheese and wine tastings every Saturday afternoon. We usually attend a couple prior to Christmas and select some of our favorite cheeses, which typically come from igourmet. Paige also sometimes picks up good cheeses from Cheese Importers in Loveland, CO. We use two cheeseboards, with made from Rimu wood, from New Zealand to serve the cheese. My brother Robin gave us the bigger one when he visited us in 2014, and I brought back a smaller one with a Paua shell inlay from New Zealand as a gift for Paige:

Rimu cheeseboard with Paua shell inlay

Dessert absolutely has to be a chocolate Yule log with meringue mushrooms. I used to buy a traditional Christmas Pudding, but gave up (which caused vociferous complaints -- the kids liked to watch the dish being flambéed with brandy) because the store-bought ones contain suet and I was the only one who ever ate them. I will try making a vegan Christmas pudding (another recipe from Mel's amazing blog) next year. This pud' looks easy to make, healthy, and delicious!

I love our Royal Albert Poinsettia Christmas dinner service. The pattern has been discontinued, but I've been collecting it on eBay for years:

Royal Albert Poinsettia

For drinks, we usually have some good wine (this year, we had some amazing New Zealand reds, which I brought home from my recent trip) and sparkling apple cider.

We love to share English-style Christmas crackers with each meal. My children may be adults, but they still LOVE their Christmas crackers. It's a little hard to find them in the U.S., so I usually order them online. This year, I brought some home from New Zealand, where they are easily available.