Growing up, we always had turkey and dressing for Christmas dinner. Turkey for Thanksgiving, turkey for Christmas.
Not only that, it was always the exact same menu: turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes with pineapple, ambrosia, cherry coke salad, peas and asparagus casserole. For dessert we had pecan pie and pumpkin pie with perhaps a another dessert added like chocolate pie. Yes, we were heavy on the pies! Is there another dessert? Oh wait, at Christmas we had Christmas cookies if there were any left by the time the 25th rolled around. (There were six kids.)
It was all foods I absolutely loved, or grew to love. I certain I didn’t love the asparagus when I was five. I do know I started eating it just for the buttered toast drenched in cream of mushroom soup that was on top!
It was the only time of year we had most of those dishes, but a bit repetitive. So when I finally got the chance to host my own Christmas, I decided I wanted to do something different for dinner. I’ve changed the menu every year since, but a beef roast is often featured….