Leyla Brooke blogs at This Day I Love and she shares with us a family tradition that adds an element of magical surprise to her Christmas Day.
I would guess that for Christmas this year the majority of households will be having turkey, stuffing, sprouts, a selection of veg, mash, roasts and gravy. I would also imagine that quite a lot will be left over, and eaten for the next few days. Not in our house. We have a little tradition of an alternative Christmas dinner.
Throughout the year each member of our family attending Christmas dinner will put forward ideas for a dinner they would like to try. The rules are rather straight forward,
It must be a chicken/turkey based dinner [and be adaptable in some form to a vegetarian equivalent]
Must have accompanying vegetables
Cannot have eaten it in the year – must be a special one off dinner
Not too tricky to cook
Roast potatoes are a given
One of the great things is that it gets us looking for new recipes or food ideas. It saves a lot of hassle too with timings and with the issue of left overs. Any left overs can be frozen and used defrosted at a later date. Its also a great way of trying new foods that perhaps you may have stayed away from.
Since the girls were born we have even started looking for slow cooker recipes. This means the majority of the dinner is prepared the night before and then cooked using the slow cooker on Christmas day. Great because is means less cooking stress and more time to spend with the girls playing with their toys and watching them open presents, more family time. Another advantage is most of the mess associated with preparing dinner is done the night before and can be cleaned up in advance.
Many ideas have been put forward for this years Christmas dinner and the excitement is slowly building as we wont know exactly which dinner has been picked until the day. This is great as it keeps us all guessing about what the dinner is and adds Christmas magic. I can’t wait to find out!
So whilst the majority of people tuck into their Traditional Christmas dinner I will be having a lovely surprise that I cannot wait to try, an alternative Christmas dinner.
–Leyla Brooke
Leyla Brooke is mummy to two wonderful girls aged 2 years and 7 months she’s currently on maternity leave. She blogs at This Day I Love about their daily lives and tries to capture those precious moments from each day. Tweet with her @thisdayilove
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