If you celebrate Christmas, what will your Christmas dinner be?

[Yak]

We're just going to do a traditional turkey, though will probably get in a small ham too just in case of cooking disasters in the case of the turkey. We'll have all the usual trimmings with it .. even sprouts, which I generally only ever have on Christmas day. What are the rest of you doing - what is a traditional Christmas lunch for you?

[Fiona1986]

We used to eat around 6/6.30 in the evening, but now it's more like 5.30 to accommodate Brodie . This year there's a choice of lamb or beef (I'm the only one who won't eat beef...), but the past few years we've had lamb, pork, duck. We'll have it with yorkshire puddings, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots. Plus sprouts for the two who like them (not me!)

[Bertie]

My parents live nearby, as does one of my brothers (with his wife and 2 kids). So he and I tend to go to my parents for the Christmas meal - though, as my mum's physical health isn't great in recent years, I now do much of the cooking.

I became vegetarian 20+ years ago, and my mum and brother later followed suit. So we have a lovely Quorn roast (with some meat for my dad on the side). Despite being vegetarian, I struggle with green vegetables (and fruit), so I avoid things like sprouts - and the stuffing, sadly - but I'll be having plenty of carrots & turnips, as well as mash, roast potatoes and (vegetable) gravy.

We used to follow that up with Christmas Pudding and White Sauce - but nowadays we've all agreed it's a heavy meal in its own right so tend to have that another time rather than after a big meal. Especially as my nephews then soon arrive to open their presents and generally charge around like madmen, so a little time to recover from the meal is favourable to filing ourselves up even more.

[Hannah]

On December 24 we will have potato salad with sausages - something many people in Germany enjoy on that day. (December 24 is the day the presents are given in the evening.)
My grandparents used to have "Eisbein" and sauerkraut on one of the following days (the online dictionary says "Eisbein" is "pickled knuckle of pork" - there's a short entry in the English wikipedia that probably describes it better).
We'll have something nice the other days too but it is not yet planned - we don't have meals in our family (consisting only of my parents, my brother and me now) that we always have on December 25 and 26. I'll discuss the meal plan with my mother when I go there next week.

There will also be plenty of homemade Christmas biscuits.

[Barnard]

I enjoy stollen and lebkuchen at Christmas.

[Susie9598]

We are having beef this year, as requested by my daughter. I don’t particularly love turkey. Last year we had goose, which was gorgeous.

I’m really excited as I genuinely can’t remember the last time I had roast beef!

[dsr]

Whatever my brother chooses to cook. He's in charge. Probably a turkey crown, though it might be pork.

[Courtenay]

I'll be working, as I generally do on Christmas Day — as I work at a care home and it has to be staffed 24/7, and I otherwise live on my own, I don't have anywhere else to go on that day and it's good to spend the day making it a happy Christmas for the people we look after. The home where I work now (near Manchester) is smaller than the one where I used to be (just south-east of London), where we had a HUGE Christmas lunch, but my current workplace is smaller and friendlier and much more like a real family. I'm pretty sure we'll be having turkey with "all the trimmings" for lunch! Not something I grew up having for Christmas, as we always had a huge barbecue lunch when I was little, back in Australia. Turkey isn't my favourite meat, but I quite like it (especially with cranberry sauce, although I've heard tell that redcurrant jelly is much better, but I don't think I've ever had it) — and I must admit I'm very fond of pigs in blankets.

[Katharine]

Fascinating - I don't think I've ever had any meat on Christmas day other than turkey, except maybe one year when it was just the 2 of us, and we might have opted for a chicken instead simply because we couldn't get a small enough turkey. I know at least one year before the children came along we had a Bernard Matthew's turkey roast, just so we could have turkey in some form. A couple of times we've gone for a turkey crown, but I like the leg meat, so have decided I would much rather have a standard turkey and then strip it and freeze any surplus meat. A couple of years ago we didn't have an for Christmas, but thankfully I'd bought a turkey roll which we cooked in the slow cooker instead - wasn't going to be without turkey at Christmas.

Didn't have a clue what pigs in blankets were until a few years ago - never had them at home, nor sausage meat in the turkey or any other variations. I guess it depends on how many people are at the meal, but as we've always had fairly small gatherings, there's always been more than enough turkey so haven't needed any extra meat.

This is one reason why I'm so anti-social and don't like the idea of cooking for guests, or going out for dinner on Christmas day - I don't want to have to compromise on eating the foods I enjoy, and I don't want the stress of having to cater for other people's preferences. As we have a number of food intolerances, our dinner wouldn't meet other people's expectations, ie gluten and dairy free batter puddings are NOTHING like 'normal' ones, but as I can't eat the other sort, I'm grateful for what I can have, however, there's no way I could serve those up to guests, so I'd be faced with either trying to provide 2 types which would be a nightmare as I only have a standard sized oven and a small kitchen, so not a lot of room for numerous bowls, cooking utensils etc. Or I'd have to serve the guests 'normal' ones, and go without myself.

Once we went to dinner (not Christmas day) at friends. They served a delicious looking roast dinner, but as they put the gravy boat on the table, we realised we needed to check the ingredients, and unfortunately it wasn't gluten free, so we had to eat it 'dry'. Nice as the meal was, it wasn't the same without gravy - the thought of having to go without gravy on Christmas day is almost as bad as waking to find Santa hasn't visited.

It's bad enough if we go out to tea, having to remember to take our own bread, margarine, cakes, biscuits, 'milk' etc., but at least if we forget something, we can usually do without or muddle through, but somehow having to go without on Christmas dinner seems much worse.

The other 'problem' with eating with other people is the timing of the meal - I known of a lot of people who don't eat their Christmas dinner until about 3.00 - I'd be collapsed on the floor from hunger if I had to wait that late!

[Yak]

I actually don't like gravy (though I can eat it in pies) and don't have it, but I realise that I am weird like that.

I have had goose once and it was nice but very fatty and VERY expensive. I am not sure I could justify the cost again but maybe one day..

[Boodi 2]

It varies from year to year, but we usually have either fish or lasagne on Christmas Eve before opening the presents, while we have a fairly traditional Christmas dinner on Christmas day with either goose or turkey and all the trimmings (including sprouts, which I actually like, especially when fried in the pan!!!)...it will be turkey this year as goose has become extremely expensive. We have always tried to combine Irish and German Christmas traditions!!!

[IceMaiden]

I think me and my parents will be having chicken and possibly a small turkey crown. Last year my aunt got us a full turkey fresh off the farm and it was delicious, but it was absolutely enormous. It barely fit in the oven and there was so much of it too, I was fed up of it after only three days. I'm not that fond of turkey really except for Christmas dinner itself out of tradition, so a crown will probably do fine, along with roast potatoes, roast carrots, roast parsnips and stuffing. No sprouts though, can't bear them:x. I don't like those sausasages wrapped in bacon either even though I love both seperately! My aunt always gives us one of her homemade Xmas puddings but we usually keep this until teatime because it's just too much on top of having a proper dinner at a time we normally only have sandwiches. Instead, as I make a chocolate log every year (made one in school cookery class and have kept up the tradition every since) we'll have a slice of that.

[Yak]

We're starting to get a bit panicky as not got the turkey yet!

[Susie9598]

I was in a bit of a quandary this week as, since we are having beef on Christmas Day (and fish pie on Boxing Day) there seemed to be no meal we could reasonably have pigs in blankets as an accompaniment… I can take or leave pigs in blankets but they are very popular with my grown up daughters. The problem was solved when I came across a recipe for Lisa Faulkner’s Christmas traybake which includes pigs in blankets and stuffing balls, and sounds very nice. So we are having this on Saturday (at half time during a v important football match on Sky!)

[Courtenay]

My mum and dad on Australia have reported they've just received their Christmas presents from me in the mail — a festive air fryer cookbook for Mum and a barbecue cookbook for Dad. I've encouraged them to open them before Christmas so they can try out some recipes beforehand... hopefully it won't get too competitive! (My sister is getting the same air fryer cookbook but she says it hasn't arrived yet — surprisingly, as she lives a lot closer to Melbourne, so you'd think the mail would get there faster. We're hoping hers will come before the weekend.)