<p>I love hearing about the different traditions…southern cooking, enchiladas, etc. when my grandmother was alive, we had rigatoni and meatballs on Christmas. </p>
<p>Keli…around here, I think seafood just tends to be reserved for special occasions. I don’t really know what others do, but I notice the seafood counter is always busier this time of year.</p>
<p>I should get moving too…still have presents to buy!</p>
<p>tx5athome–I’m making “mimosas” but with cran/pomegranate juice for the season :D. Pinterest has a LOT of ideas for festive drinks, many include things like pomegranate juice or cranberry juice for the color. There are also many posts for grinch punch–green punch that a lot of people seem to make for watching the Grinch on tv :D. Here are a some I have on file:</p>
<p>A Partridge in a Pear Tree
<p>Rim martini glass with powdered sugar. Put a rosemary sprig in each glass. Combine vodka, lemon juice and simple syrup in a shaker with ice. Shake well, and strain over rosemary. Top with very cold champagne for a bit of fizz.</p>
<p>This is unbelievably good and incredibly refreshing. YUM!</p>
<p>Poinsettia</p>
<p>1 part Champagne
1 part Cranberry juice
1 tbsp Grand Marnier
Directions: Mix together with crushed ice in a glass and garnish with mint leaves</p>
<p>Don’t Drink Yellow Snow</p>
<p>Absolute Citron Vodka
Orange Juice
Club Soda</p>
<p>Sugar Plum Fairy</p>
<p>Raspberry Vodka
Cranberry Pomegranate Juice
Club Soda</p>
<p>We have both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here. Quite this year, just us and a boyfriend and a girlfriend. I make prime rib on Christmas Day. We are doing fondue on Christmas Eve.</p>
<p>My Mom may bring the Snickers ‘salad’.</p>
<p>[Snickers</a> salad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snickers_salad]Snickers”>Snickers salad - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Or perhaps the Mt Dewey Lemon ‘salad’.</p>
<p>Other than that…honey ham, kale and bacon, sweet potatoes, rolls.</p>
<p>Thanks Steve those are great!</p>
<p>Good morning parents! So much good news to celebrate here and lots of waiting for more good news… momentum is growing… it’s right around the corner, I can just feel it 
It’s a double edged sword. I don’t want to have it all now because that makes the year go by more quickly.</p>
<p>Congrats to all the new school acceptances and hugs for all the kids (and parents) waiting. (We went through some private school admissions when the kids were little, and we used to explain that they were absolutely qualified to attend, there just weren’t enough desks at some schools to accept everyone that applied.) No reflection on these awesome students if universities don’t have enough space to accommodate the growing number of college bound seniors! </p>
<p>I really enjoy reading about all of your kids and events in their lives because it reaffirms for me that my D will meet kids like yours when she goes off to college. I whole heartedly agree with the earlier statement that some, maybe most, kids want to reinvent themselves in college. I know that is a major reason why my D has very little interest in attending our state flagship where a large number of kids go from her HS. Same for many of the other big colleges here in the SE. Even though these are huge universities and she may only run into a handful, the regional culture is too familiar and she wants something different. It is driving my H nuts! He needs to be more informed, but I just don’t have time to educate him. He is stuck in the 70’s where we all applied to 1 or 2 schools, usually our in-state flagship and it was enough. It doesn’t help her that our state provides very generous merit aid. For many families, it is extremely hard to walk away from that gift. We will really struggle with that decision when the time comes.</p>
<p>D was notified on Thursday of her acceptance to U of Miami-Ohio and we are waiting for the letter in the mail. Hoping for the merit aid because I think this one may be her top choice right now. So much can change in 3-4 months as we all know so I won’t go out and buy the sweatshirt for Christmas! ;)</p>
<p>I’m with you all on the cars thing. We have three cars, the newest is a 2003 Acura with about 50k on it (bought it last year with 40k on it). The other two are early 2000 Hondas with around 130k on each. The bodies will fall apart before those engines give up.</p>
<p>I am very hungry reading about the meals you all will be preparing for Christmas. They all sound great. We did have latkes, matzo ball soup and brisket at Hannukah. For Christmas we will be having our traditional movie out and then Chinese food. </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“Chinese Food On Christmas - YouTube”>Chinese Food On Christmas - YouTube]Chinese</a> Food On Christmas - YouTube<a href=“if%20this%20doesn’t%20work%20just%20google%20%22Chinese%20Food%20on%20Christmas%22%20by%20Brandon%20Harris%20Walker”>/url</a></p>
<p>^^like A Christmas Story? Fah rah rah rah rah, rah rah rah rah!</p>
<p>drmom - sorry about the drama. Ours got better when D15 got to high school, but I think it’s just because she spent all her time with the music/drama people, ironically enough. More of an “us against the world” thing at that point. Boys are definitely easier.</p>
<p>kelijake, my S is the same way - he’s on Facebook but almost never posts. But he’ll even ask questions sometimes about the “word on the board” (my code).</p>
<p>SteveMA - ditto on the parties. Thankfully my kids found a group that needs to maintain eligibility for a variety of activities.</p>
<p>A few months ago we finally got rid of my beloved 1992 Accord with 214,000 miles. But it needed work worth about twice the blue book value… for the second time this year <sigh>. Now I have a baby 2003 with only 108K :).</sigh></p>
<p>D15 got home last night, and immediately proceeded to let everyone know what needs to happen for the next two weeks, bless her heart… hopefully a good night’s sleep will improve things there.</p>
<p>vandygrad - I’m so with you on the mornings! This morning I thought DH was getting up early and I was so tiptoeing around so he’d fall back asleep :D. Also - YUM!!! Got an empty chair??? </p>
<p>We are probably having cornish game hen because it’s the only “fancy” meal D15 likes besides turkey, and we had that at our pre-Christmas with my dad two weeks ago. She’s finicky about food, but is a good sport about getting her own – for big meals I like to include her. And definitely shrimp for appetizers - both cold with cocktail sauce and wrapped in bacon.</p>
<p>We are decorating the tree today - yay!</p>
<p>Love reading about all the meals! We always have Christmas Eve at my in-laws. My husband is 1 of 9 kids and there are now 26 grand kids. Everyone just brings things: shrimp cocktail, meatballs, salad, etc. A few years ago I started bringing sausage bread and it is a big hit so I will continue that tradition and bring 2 this year. The kids perform carols and my FIL reads “The night before Christmas” to all the grand kids and then we open presents from my in-laws and the kids’ god parents.</p>
<p>Christmas day this year is at my SIL. she is making a ham and lasagna (she is Italian and every holiday has ravioli or lasagna, etc.). i was assigned desserts so I am bringing chocolate cream pie and cheesecake with strawberries.</p>
<p>I went up to our mall area this morning about 9:30a. Wasn’t too bad then but by the time I left at noon it was getting crazy up there!</p>
<p>Today was a good day for mail. S received his Lake Forest acceptance package which included a $12k/y scholarship, his Ursinus acceptance letter, and a $20k/y scholarship from Beloit. </p>
<p>We don’t celebrate Christmas but S still wants to make some Christmas cookies. I think he just wants some junk food for his break. I’ll probably make the cranberry sauce I made for Thanksgiving since I still have 3 bags of cranberries in the freezer. Anyone have any other ideas of what to do with them??</p>
<p>I really need to go to the grocery store this morning because we are having a sit down fancy dinner for 20 in our home tonight.</p>
<p>But, I don’t even want to leave the house because I am poised over the mailbox. We are supposed to get the full acceptance package today (or worse… next week sometime) that has merit/scholarship info in it. Of course my daughter is just sleeping away, oblivious to the important information that is coming in the mail.</p>
<p>Congrats reeinaz on the acceptances/money! The mailman has been coming increasingly late here for the past couple weeks, I guess because of the holiday season mail extravaganza? But it’s driving me nuts waiting for stuff til like 7 PM!</p>
<p>I have no idea what’s going on for Christmas dinner, someone will probably cook something and I’ll eat it. 
We don’t do big family gatherings that much, especially this year since everyone’s so busy with school/work/this college crap.</p>
<p>Although I was thinking about just committing to MIT and quitting applications, I’ve decided that I don’t ever want to think “what if…?” so I’ll continue with my original plan. I’m thrilled with this acceptance and mostly decided (my hoody/t-shirt is coming for Christmas!) but I’ll throw apps at the HYPS lottery and see what happens in April. Currently I’m reworking my essays, my commonapp was OKish but I wasn’t completely satisfied with it, and I’m going to tweak it a bit (especially after the UChicago deferral). Oh, and I withdrew my app from UChicago as well.</p>
<p>THANK GOD THIS SEMESTER IS OVER. My grades sort of sucked, I could not bring myself to do the copious busywork to get great grades but thanks to some final exam extra credit I at least have low As in all my classes lol. And next semester won’t count for really anything so I’m going to embrace the senioritis now.</p>
<p>Congrats, ree! Here’s something like the cranberry crisp I mentioned earlier…I like it served a la mode (I don’t peel the apples and I’d cut the sugar by half). [Cranberry</a> Apple Crisp Recipe | Taste of Home Recipes](<a href=“http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Cranberry-Apple-Crisp]Cranberry”>Cranberry Apple Crisp Recipe: How to Make It)</p>
<p>So funny that I take a break from Christmas preparations to come on CC and everyone is talking about Christmas menus. Christmas eve is at the in-laws so I only have to bring a salad, appetizers and sweets, but Christmas day is at my house and that is a big one. Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potato souffle, stuffing, spring salad with cranberries and walnuts, cherry jello, beets and corn (grown and frozen from our garden), brussell sprouts in butter sauce, zucchini bread, pumpkin muffins, eggnog pie, chocolate pie, pistachio pie, pumpkin pie, gingerbread men, sugar cookies and fudge. I love making a big Christmas day meal and hope that it will keep my kids coming home, even after they head off to college and adult life!</p>
<p>We had a HUGE party here last night…everyone invited friends, me, the kids…I think at one time we had about 60 here? The theme was Elf! And we have spent the week turning our house into a version of the department store/condo in the movie…100’ of paper chains, 60+ snowflakes hanging from ceiling, everyone in elf wear or ugly Christmas sweaters, spaghetti for dinner (syrup optional)… Then a round of Goodwill Dirty Santa ((gift had to be purchased for under $5), caroling and delivering goodies to neighbors, everyone brought a new toy or book to donate to our local children’s hospital, and hundreds of sweets…really one of my happiest nights ever! We had a CREW of college age kids and seniors, so lots of college conversations. I felt a little guilty that ours is decided and there is NO stress for the rest of D2s senior year! however, with all that I learned here, could offer some really good tips : )
As for Christmas dinner, we’ll fry a turkey, mashed potatoes, chestnut sausage stuffing, rolls, and saut</p>
<p>Thanks MommyDearest for the recipe. I think I will try that one. Like I said, I think he just wants deserts/snacks so that’s perfect.</p>
<p>reeinaz, about the cranberries, I do an easy cranberry/apple crisp about once a week this time of year. If kids go out after supper for sports they come back hungry so I like to do a substantial, relatively healthy dessert. It’s very basic: just an apple a person, sliced or chopped, as many cranberries as seem reasonable, some sugar, cinnamon and a granola topping. I stick it in the oven until the top is brown. Occasionally I get fancy and do a proper topping, but usually it’s just the granola. Other substantial after sports desserts are pumpkin flans (basically pumpkin pie without the crust) and a hung yoghurt mixed with a fruit puree.</p>
<p>I am preparing the 7 fish dishes for Christmas Eve - however it isn’t quite 7 separate dishes…shrimp cocktail, brandad (salt cod dip), fried calamari, mussels, and a seafood scampi with shrimp, scallops, calamari, and lobster over lemon basil risotto or linguine…roasted fig and goat cheese salad…and whatever my in-laws bring for dessert!</p>
<p>Feast of the 7 Fishes!!! My favorite holiday tradition!</p>
<p>Fredricksdottir - I’m really liking the whole cranberry crisp ideas. I’m such a noncook. I can’t believe how easy such a dish is. And pumpkin flan!! I don’t think I’m ready to try that one but I might suggest it to one of my flan making coworkers.</p>
<p>I was just thinking of making an apple cranberry pie but the crisp idea sounds so much easier. I think I’ll pin the recipe that Mommydearest13 shared. Right now, D is assembling her triple layer red velvet cake for tonight. Smells delicious. Pandora is playing Christmas songs throughout the house - it seems like a holiday now. (And I did run to Target a few minutes ago for an adapter plug for D to take to Prague with her. It was a madhouse!)</p>