What's for Christmas Dinner? It used to be the Christmas Feast. It has migrated to being called Christmas Dinner. Should I capitalize the two words as a formal name? It seems to go either way.
I think of us as part of North American traditions that trace back to Britain. The U.S. counts its Christmas traditions back to Britain/British Empire. Canada remained in the British Empire, so these traditions seem to be still with us. Charles Dickens is referenced as having spread the idea of a Christmas dinner with a roast bird. With these roots to Northern Europe, there is a consistent tradition of a roasted fowl of some sort - turkey in Britain, and guinea hen, goose, duck, and so on in France, Germany and other countries.
When Christmas was a religious festival only, there were ritualistic foods based on religious traditions. The Catholic faith had rules around meatless dishes before a feast day. And there are the number of dishes to represent the disciples, and so on.
In some countries there was 40 days of fasting leading up to Christmas. That's how one article described Montenegro's tradition - and when Christmas dinner came it was meatless and dairy-free. Ethiopia was Orthodox with the old Julian calendar so they don't get to celebrate until January 7th and again, they fast before Christmas.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes - this is the name given by Italian-Americans to the Christmas Eve vigil and epic seafood feast. In Italy there isn't a count fo the number of fish dishes. The list of popular dishes looks to be about twenty or more. So getting it down to seven fishes would be a challenge.
Now we see unending ideas for Christmas Dinner menus - these come from food magazines. Some day we'll nostalgically remember when we could find the 12, 20, 50, 60, 70, 80 best Christmas dinner menus.
Here's the most outrageous headline for a Christmas Dinner: "59 Christmas Side Dishes You Need in Your Holiday Spread."
This is the beautiful historical Kitchen House at Peninsula Ridge Winery.
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