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.
What happens the day after do nothing day? Could it be a day of something and knowing about something? Today isn't Epistemology Day, though. There doesn't seem to be a day that celebrates the theory of knowledge, of knowing. It could be Ontology Day - that's the study of existence. No day of celebration there, either.
So perhaps the day after doing nothing is the day of knowing nothing or not knowing something. We can trace this back to the Greeks. "You don't know what you don't know," and "Wisdom is knowing what you don't know." These are attributed to Socrates.
Modern variations on this: "Intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do". Jean Piaget
"Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant". Charles Munger
So today we can be practical, as it is Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day or we can wait for tomorrow and celebrate Thesaurus Day.
We're looking at the historic house at Peninsula Ridge Winery. These are pictures from previous winters.
