What are your traditional holiday meals?

[lilmomma]

Easter- ham

Mem day and July 4th and Labor day- BBQ, usually burgers and dogs

Thanksgiving-turkey

Xmas- turkey

New years- prime rib

[bblonde]

I'm a little late to the party but I love this topic!

Valentine's Day: chocolate souffle cake

Oscar night: varies, but we always have key lime pie (just a good excuse, I guess!)

St. Patty's: very typical: corned beef, boiled cabbage and carrots, parsleyed new potatoes

Easter: ham, cheese grits, either a vinegar slaw or a pea salad (also vinegar-based), deviled eggs, a lamb cake with coconut

Memorial Day: typically burgers for the first official kick-off to summer, usually baked beans, potato chips, melon, homemade ice cream and Texas sheet cake

4th of July: We (almost) always host a big bash and do brisket sandwiches, slaw or pasta salad, baked beans, watermelon, red, white, and blueberry trifle

Labor Day: smoked ribs, corn on the cob, slaw or beans, dessert varies

Halloween: either Dracula's revenge (recipe from cooking light but I made necessary changes to it--do not proceed with it as written) or sloppy joes, pumpkin-faced orange jello, shredded carrot, and pineapple mold, spider web cookies, frost on the pumpkin cookies, and caramel apples

Thanksgiving: Brined turkey, celery, onion, and sage dressing, giblet gravy, oyster and corn dressing, brussels sprouts, fresh green bean casserole, brown sugar glazed sweet potatoes (another CL recipe I highly recommend) OR peppered-pecan brulee sweet potatoes (potatoes are not mashed), grandmother's refrigerator rolls, mimi's ground cranberry-orange-nut jello salad, cranberry sauce, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, mince pie

Christmas Eve: In recent years we've experienced a Prime rib conversion. Along with that we have mashed potatoes, green beans, and hot rolls. For an appetizer we have crab dip and crackers, mulled cider for the kiddies and blood orange sangria for the adults. Dessert doesn't really matter because of all the confections: aunt bill's brown candy, jelly jewel thumbprints, date balls, and decorated sugar cookies. Someone still usually shows up with an Italian cream cake.

Christmas morning: I usually make either a strata or french toast casserole. When we awaken we have mimosas and open presents while that bakes. Add some fruit.

Christmas Day: when I was a child we all gathered at my great grandmother's house and had beans (we used to have ham on Christmas eve). Now, I find myself buying ham hocks and cooking a pot of ham and beans and letting it cook while my family goes to our traditional Christmas movie.

New Year's Eve: It mostly varies, but we always have little appetizers and champagne. I usually make CL's cherry chutney cheese torte, some kind of shrimp, and little pork sandwiches and artichoke dip.

New Year's Day: A lot of times we'll get a ham and make macaroni and cheese and some green vegetable. And usually bread pudding.

Other food holidays of note: Birthdays are a big deal in my family and my family members often choose the same birthday meal over and over.

For my sister (the day after the Fourth) it's a crouton-topped meat-cheese-tomato-and-onion pasta, salad, chocolate cake, and remaining homemade ice cream (from the Fourth)

My grandmother (who's still with us) loves chicken spaghetti, a pea salad, and German Chocolate cake.

My mom's birthday falls right after Thanksgiving (which can be a mess) so I've gotten her meal down to a science--she chooses what her mother (my mimi) always chose: chicken and noodles, cranberry sauce, vinegar slaw, rolls, and a mystery pie

My dad's birthday is exactly a week before Christmas and family is usually flying in around this time: He always wants ham loaf, scalloped potatoes, green beans, and a chocolate meringue pie.

But I think the best was my grandfather's--he loved food so much that he would start anticipating a month in advance. One time I made his dinner for 15 when my sister's baby shower was only hours earlier. He asked for chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes with cream gravy, green beans and bacon, iced tea, apricot pie.

[Quine]

Well I am from a Polish background, so Catholic traditions ruled some meals.

Easter: Since from Good Friday until Easter Morning after mass, were fasting and no cooking, all Easter foods were cooked on Thursday. That was a Ham, kielbasi and of course hard boiled eggs. The priest usually visited the home and blessed it and the food. As I recall fro the priest fasting did not include stay off of spirits. ;)
So when we got home from Easter mass, we cubed up the eggs, ham and kielbasi and fried them all together, with beet horseradish and good rye bread on the side. So amazingly good!!!

[laliz]

Easter ~~ Ham
Memorial Day ~~ Picnic
4th of July ~~ Fried Chicken
Thanksgiving ~~ Turkey w/trimmings
Christmas ~~ Varies year to year/usually not Turkey more like lasagne or roast beef

[JungMann]

Shrove Tuesday: Pancakes and paczki

Easter: lamb, deviled eggs, carrot cake

Memorial Day/July 4th/Labor Day: Barbecue and salads

Thanksgiving: Turkey, stuffing, spring rolls

Christmas Eve: ham, Edam, bread, chicken salad, charcuterie, hot chocolate

Christmas Day: stuffed chicken, paella, bread pudding, chicken and crab gumbo

[EWSflash]

For about ten years in a row my mother made lasagna- and overcooked it to the point of burning the edges every damn time.

[Emme]

Channukah - roast chicken, latkes and applesauce

Passover - roast chicken, brisket, gefilte fish, charoset

Christmas - ham, bagels, lox

Thanksgiving - roast chicken, stuffing, potatoes, gravy (stepdad is SUPER picky about this), Pumpkin pie, gingerbread

Stepdad's B-day - hamburgers, fries, chocolate chip cookies (these made by me)

[Karl S]

Thanksgiving: Turkey

Christmas: Varies

New Years Day: Fresh ham (aka uncured leg of pork)

Easter: Lamb (grilled, not roasted)

Memorial Day: well, it's not really a day about food, but the dead...

Independence Day: the once-canonical menu of the holiday in New England - wild Atlantic salmon, peas, shad roe and strawberry shortcake - is long no more. Fried clams while taking a long drive, followed by ice cream, is more realistic.

Labor Day: the peak of the late summer harvest means we feast on the best of sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, peaches, berries, early apples, et cet.

[Harters]

"Fresh ham (aka uncured leg of pork)"

This may be another case of things being called different names on the opposite sides of the Atlantic - but on the eastern side, there's no such thing as "fresh ham". Ham has always been cured. If it's not cured, it's pork.

[Karl S]

Interesting. A ham in American English is simply the leg of a pig. It's either cured or uncured. Because it's most commonly found in cured form, the modifier is used for the less familiar form.

[decolady]

We celebrate many holidays with food.

New Year's Eve - champagne and hors d'œuvres

New Year's Day - collards, peas and cornbread

12th Night - King Cake

Valentine's Day - dessert is always Berries on a Cloud (a type of pavlova with fresh strawberries)

Chinese New Year - Chinese food, of course. Menu varies, but we always include spring rolls and tangerines.

Mardi Gras - Gumbo, muffalettas, or étouffée. King Cake for dessert.

Ash Wednesday - Creole shrimp

St. Patrick's Day - Irish boiling bacon, fried potato farls, cabbage (these days I use Molly Stevens' World's Best Braised Green Cabbage which includes carrot & onion), Irish soda bread, assorted Irish cheeses, coffee with Bailey's Irish Cream.

Good Friday - gumbo z'herbes

Easter - Some things vary, but we have poached leeks with pink peppercorn mayo for a starter. Asparagus and my great-grandmother's baked macaroni and cheese are on the menu with fresh coconut cake for dessert.

Memorial Day - crudités, bbq chicken, potato salad, pasta salad, southern baked beans, fresh sliced tomatoes and Vidalia onions, chocolate cookie sheet cake

4th of July - crudités, grilled turkey burgers, homemade buns, assorted trimmings including fresh sliced tomatoes and Vidalia onions, pasta salad, potato salad, southern baked beans, strawberry shortcake

Labour Day - bbq of some kind

Halloween - soup party: several different kinds of soup with French bread and cornbread

Thanksgiving - turkey and cornbread dressing, pumpkin lemon-cream pie

Christmas Eve - If we are home it is either hors d'œuvres or Feast of the Seven Fishes.

Christmas - For breakfast it is always my grandmother's Cinnamon Buns. We have no traditional menu for the main meal. Some years we are at DisneyWorld and eat at one of their better restaurants. When we're at home we have done meals such as fondue for every course or planning a meal around foods of a certain country. Just whatever strikes us that sounds good.

[lilmomma]

WOWWWWEEEEE!!!!! YUM!!!!

[roro1831]

My Mardi Gras meal is Popeye's, reminds me of sitting on St Charles Ave watching the parades and just watching all the people go by.

New Years Day - Cabbage and pig tails, black eyed peas
12th Night - King cake
St Patrick's Day - Corned beef and cabbage
Easter - Ham and whatever sides are being prepared
Memorial Day / 4th of July, BBQ, whatever strikes my fancy
Thanksgiving - Turkey, maybe turducken, oyster dressing, rice and peas, then watever the inlaws bring since they like nothing that I do

Christmas - Turkey or Prime Rib

[mrbigshotno.1]

Easter-Ham, scalloped potatoes, fresh peas, parkerhouse rolls
summer and fall-BBQ and grilling, smoking
Thanksgiving- Turkey, cornish hens, or quail (alternate year to year)
Christmas-beef tamales
New Years- who knows, never made a big deal of new years eve or day

[OCEllen]

Easter - lamb, rabbit or duck.

4th of July - something grilled outside; salmon, steak, burgers, bbq chicken, ribs.

Thanksgiving - duck (don't like turkey).

Christmas - goose or duck.

New Years - rack of lamb or steaks.

[carolinadawg]

New Years Day - Collards, black-eyed peas, pork, cornbread
Thanksgiving - Turkey (duh!), oysters, indian pudding, rice. Lasagna the night before.
Easter - Ham or lamb

[Harters]

Easter (sometime over the weekend) - lamb
Xmas - turkey