Christmas feasting ideas

Now I am getting to my favorite subject, feasting.  When I visited Williamsburg, VA in September 2000 I told them that they should have a feast that mimics the ones of that time period.  I have only heard stories, but they are incredible.  Putting on a feast was the equivalent of our dinner parties, but there was always a huge variety of foods, this was a way to show off how prosperous you were.

In the story by Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol" the main part of the feast at Christmas time was a Goose, some people eat duck and some eat turkey or ham and some even eat a crown roast (usually pork).  I haven eaten all of those except the Goose, but turkey seems to remain my favorite.  Especially when it is served with cranberry sauce, corn bread stuffing and lots of melted butter oh and let's not forget yeast rolls.
For desert I love pie (peach, blueberry or apple crumb).

I believe this one is part of a crown roast

I remember when I was young the cookies we would make.  But alas that is a fairly traditional meal.  There are those that go above and beyond with their feasting.  You can add such delicacies (if you can afford them either time wise and/or money wise) as crusted beef tenderloin (with any type of nuts or even pepper), any type of tart you can think of, recipes that include prosciutto (an Italian ham delicacy), smoked salmon, a pomegranate wine sauce, and let's not forget about more ordinary party fair like crab and cheese puffs.  I have also tried English clotted cream with fresh fruit which is absolutely wonderful and very expensive, a real treat.  Oh and that reminds me that I forgot about Christmas bread pudding with hard sauce (includes some brandy) if it's made properly it is very yummy and fattening too I am sure.

I have no idea what this is, but it looks gorgeous

I know that there are some traditional English feasts dishes that sound horrible to me and probably many other Americans.  Dishes like blood pudding and I can't remember any other ones right now.  You can find instructions and recipes for all types of British puddings if you would like to make that a family tradition.  Here is one site about British foods.

Maybe you can create an adventure for your Christmas day meal of trying one exotic or unusual dish.  Believe it or not there are even some lettuces which have wonderful flavors, where as iceberg has virtually no flavor at all.  Living in a conservative city it doesn't seem to sell very well around here, but in bigger cities I am sure you can find all types of lettuces.  Actually I love to mix them because they can give you an incredible variety of tastes (with a home made dressing of course).

Reminds me of Queen of Sheba cake

So leave a comment and share with all of us what Christmas food traditions you have or would like to start.
Only 10 days now and Christmas will arrive.  Happy Holidays to all of my readers.  To those of you who Christmas is a difficult time for, my sympathies to you. I still miss my son who was killed in a car crash in 2004, but I try to focus on my grand son who shares the same first name.  We all need to look forward to something, don't we?

Images shared from the Food Network page entitled the best Christmas recipes.