Christmas Dinner Menu

[jacksmom]

We like to grill really nice steaks, have baked potatoes with all the trimmings, asparagus with hollandaise sauce and a festive salad with pears, apples and cranberries, and a nice bread. I make a cheese ball and a hot artichoke dip for appetizers and a coconut cake for desert. For Christmas Eve we order chinese take out.

 

[monorailmom]

I cook Christmas Day for about 20 people, and honestly am more worried about convenience than cost. I want to enjoy the day with my family. (but yeah, we don't have lobster pie or anything!!)

I make a couple of lasagnas (prepped the day before so no dishes on Christmas Day. Lasagnas are made in foil pans from either Dollar Tree or BJ's.) I put out a loaf of Italian bread, veggies and dip, and frozen meatballs with sauce in my crock pot. Apps are crackers and cheese and chips and dip, and whatever someone else brings. Guests typically bring dessert, but it's a tradition with my kids no matter how old they are that we make Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve.

It doesn't have to cost a lot or require you spend the whole day cooking.

 

[colormegreen]

Christmas for us is just left overs. Our big celebration is Dec. 24th which we do our traditional Mexicans food for the day and then there are lots of left overs. However, I won’t be doing that this year, I will be ordering takeout from a bbq restaurant and then probably doing spinach lasagna rolls for dinner on the 25th as it’s very easy.

 

[pigletto]

I cook Christmas Day for about 20 people, and honestly am more worried about convenience than cost. I want to enjoy the day with my family. (but yeah, we don't have lobster pie or anything!!)

I make a couple of lasagnas (prepped the day before so no dishes on Christmas Day. Lasagnas are made in foil pans from either Dollar Tree or BJ's.) I put out a loaf of Italian bread, veggies and dip, and frozen meatballs with sauce in my crock pot. Apps are crackers and cheese and chips and dip, and whatever someone else brings. Guests typically bring dessert, but it's a tradition with my kids no matter how old they are that we make Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve.

It doesn't have to cost a lot or require you spend the whole day cooking.

We are hosting Christmas Eve for about 40 people and providing the main dish as well as filling in any gaps. After tossing around a variety of options, we’ve decided on homemade lasagna too. I like ours better than the one I was going to get from a local caterer. I also decided that spending an afternoon assembling and baking lasagnas was definitely worth saving the money over the buying from the caterer. It was going to be $180 for 5 of them. So in this case, homemade won.

 

[buzz1fan]

I think we are doing. Ham in a roaster. In the oven a turkey breast, corn casserole, scalloped potatoes , and heat up make ahead mashed potatoes.
I will fix green beans and grocery bakery rolls.

 

[leebee]

I had 15 people for dinner last Sunday (friends pre-holiday celebration, as everyone goes "home" for the holidays). I went with a red-and-green theme. For apps, I made:
guacamole- smashed up 4 avocados, add a couple spoons of chunky salsa, a shake of salt and about a tsp. of olive oil; I bought the red and green tortilla chips to go with this.
tomato dunk- mince up some onions, kalamata olives, and garlic, add a couple of baskets of small tomatoes, douse in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, tsp. of sugar, and roast on a baking pan at 375 for about 40 mins. Put in a bowl and mash... served with (purchased) sliced/toasted baguette rounds that I warmed up
Asian sweet chili & thai green curry chicken wings (marinade chicken wings overnight in sauces from Trader Joes)
Lasagne
Spanakopita

I made apple crisp for dessert, briefly considering doing it with macintosh and granny smith and leaving a little of the skins on each slice, but I hate cooked apple skins so I didn't go there. This was all really easy to make ahead- chicken wings marinated overnight, were baked for almost an hour and then went in the crockpot on low to stay warm. Guac and tomato dunk were made the day before; just press plastic wrap on the surface of the guacamole and it won't discolor. I made the lasagne and spanakopita the day before and baked them on the day of; they went in the oven for an hour as soon as the chicken wings came out. We made the apple crisp the day of, so the apples didn't brown too much, but made it around noon. It went into the oven to bake when the lasagne/spanakopita came out. It was all pretty easy to prepare in advance and actually cooking time during the party was easy. I just kept popping things in and out of the oven with no real mess in the kitchen.

 

[ADisneyQueen]

We have about 20 people here for Christmas day and everyone brings something. We stopped having a "traditional" meal a few years ago bc it's just too much work for everyone since we eat around 12:30. Now we just have the hot side dishes on Thanksgiving.
Menu: Ham, Turkey, linguine salad, potato salad, macaroni salad, taco dip with tortilla chips, veg. and relish tray, cranberry relish, squash, rolls and slider buns, apple cake and christmas cookies.