picture courtesy of Mom

What kind of Christmas traditions do you follow? Or do you follow any traditions? Do you serve a traditional meal? What is a traditional Christmas meal? When I was growing up, I think we always had turkey or ham on Christmas. I don’t remember if there were other dishes that were served every Christmas. There were certain cookies I remember always having. Some of my favorites were Grandma Lorry’s rum balls and her fudge. Grandma Lorry is no longer with us so now I have to make the rum balls and fudge. Some years I do and other years I don’t. I guess they are no longer a tradition any more. Another favorite is Grandma Sue’s cut out, frosted, sugar cookies. Sometimes I see her over the Christmas season, some years I don’t get to see her until March or April. Whenever I do finally see her she will pull some sugar cookies out of the freezer for me. Carol always used to make homemade chocolate covered cherries, I absolutely love those. Due to restricted diets, she no longer makes those. I usually do, but there have been a few years that I never got around to making them. They are putzy to make and a huge temptation to keep them in the house. The King is not a huge sweet eater, but he always liked his Grandma Hahn’s white fudge. I will blog about that one day this week, there is quite a story about this white fudge!

Now onto the meal. We do not eat a traditional Christmas meal here. Our tradition is to put everyone’s choice into a hat, draw one out, and that is what we will eat for Christmas dinner. We have had all kinds of things for dinner; lasagna, pork loin, ham, rouladen (don’t know if I spelled that right!), Swedish meatballs and fish. I don’t know yet what we will be having for dinner this year, but I know we will be spending Christmas Day with Mom and Marv. Mom wants pork loin, Marv wants ham and I want lasagna. The King, Princess and Trucker have not decided what they want yet. Our dessert will be decided using the same method. Marv wants banana cream pie; I don’t know any other dessert choices yet. We have time.

I love Christmas. I enjoy going to church Christmas Eve. I enjoy spending the day with my family and all of the eating, the game playing and the laughing. I think I like the preparation of Christmas the best though. When we celebrate Christmas with Grampy and Miss Joy, the Princess is making homemade raviolis (spelling?) for dinner. I am already looking forward to watching her make the dinner. I will be just as excited to hear everyone's Christmas dinner wish as I will be to open the biggest present under the tree!