Our Family’s Not So Traditional Christmas Dinner | Recipes Download
Do you have a traditional Christmas Dinner meal? Our family’s menu strays from my past. My children love their shrimp dinner on Christmas Eve!
If you wish, you may get our menu and try it out, too!
Traditional Christmas Dinner
When I was growing up, our Christmas meals didn’t stray from the tried and true.
My mom’s family was about having the same thing every year, while my Dad’s was a little more ready to try new dishes as they came along.
So when I think of traditional Christmas food, I think of my Mom, her Mom and her sisters. They pretty much followed old German-Ukrainian cuisine of holubshi, perogies, apple strudel and the best dinner rolls you’ve ever tasted.
I could share the recipes but they wouldn’t give you the “taste” you get when you are with loved ones. You absorb so much more than the taste of the food.
There’s the smell of the kitchen.
The sight of the tiny print floral cotton apron tied around Grandma’s tummy, then also looped up around her neck and tied in a bow. With pockets. No ruffles, no frills. Pure get-cooking, flour-streaked, grease-stained, cotton apron. I’m sure she had many, but they all looked the same to me. Lovely aprons for a lovely Grandma.
Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the be-eater. And I be a very happy eater at Grandma’s house!!
Our Not-So-Traditional Christmas Menu
is a little of the same-old, and quite a bit of the odd, when you think of my past.
While my boys were growing up, their best Christmas Eve dinner was shrimp, pasta, Caesar salad, butter-and-herb cheese biscuits, more shrimp, and more green salad.
I could prepare other sides, make a fancy drink to fill the Christmas goblets, but they were all about the shrimp.
Then they got married, and the wives weren’t shrimp lovers. In fact, one wife doesn’t eat shrimp at all. So a few other choices appeared and the table décor got a little more focus, and…
life is good…
This year, we’ll all be at the same table.
For our Christmas Eve shrimp dinner. (Hasn’t happened for a few years.)
But this mama has plans.
Little gold wrapped gifts on each gold-rimmed bone-china plate to be opened before the food comes out.
A Story to share with the grands before they get buckled into the boosters.
A foamy, family-friendly red punch to pour into holly-rimmed goblets. And all get a goblet! Even the smallest boy who spills more than he sips.
Would you like to try our Christmas Eve menu?
They’re good for any meal during the season, when you have loved ones around your table.
If you do, just go to this page, fill out the form, and ask for “Christmas Shrimp Dinner Menu.”
