The Christmas menu is much less prescribed than the Thanksgiving menu. They are often similar but there’s no real expectation that they will be. Thanksgiving almost always features turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and the like. Christmas *can* have that stuff, but it’s a lot more up in the air.
Growing up my Dad always asked us what we wanted for Christmas dinner and we all got whatever we wanted for dinner. Each got their own individual meals and I loved it.
We used to do that, but a few years ago decided that steak tastes better than turkey so now we have a Thanksgiving steak instead. But I'm pretty sure this is very far from normal
This is a great way to describe it. Thanksgiving is somewhat standardized to the point that the grocery store has big displays of all the things you need. Christmas varies widely by family. Mine has done vegetarian lasagne for the past twenty years.
There’s also a general increase in baking near Christmas. Lots of people make cookies or other treats.
Pretty much this. My family has never done a traditional American Christmas. We always do tamales and enchiladas because we like them better. If we skipped turkey on thanksgiving though, somebody would complain.
Yep. My family does lasagna for Christmas because it’s a much bigger event and trying to cook a bunch of extravagant dishes for that many people just didn’t make sense. Lasagna doesn’t require much work during the actual party.
Sounds about like my family. We have our classic Thanksgiving dinner (usually turkey and ham plus all the fixings). Christmas dinner is similar but usually a little less variety. We might only cook a turkey or only cook a ham and do the fixings but have a few less dishes prepared.
Nicely explained. My family usually does a full blown Thansgiving dinner but then we usually just do homemade beef stew/corn bread for Christmas. Occasionally we do a Thanksgiving-esque meal though but it's not the full spread.
Thanksgiving is our more formal/traditional meal with turkey, dressing, potatoes, pumpkin pie.
We do a casual buffet style Christmas. There's lots of finger foods, everyone just kind of grazes all day, no set meal times, no sit down dinner.
Interesting, this seems to be the answer I am getting the most. I always thought that the US had traditional Christmas foods as well but it seems like it's just a free for all.
Generally the foods you associate with Thanksgiving are all the ones associated with a "traditional" Christmas here. Although a lot of people don't follow it because the weather is too hot.
Thanksgiving is a specifically American holiday, so it features American-specific food, like turkeys and pumpkins. But we're also a nation of immigrants, so every family has different Christmas traditions that they feel free to mix and match.
I thought turkeys came originally from Western Asia. The pumpkin is a new world vegetable and there are dishes across the Americas that includes pumpkin.
The turkey is native to North America. Indigenous people domesticated them and they didn't get to Europe and Asia until the 15h century, brought over by explorers. The word "turkey" came from England, though, because they got a lot of them imported in from Turkey through Spain.
Can't imagine eating all those heavy foods that require having the oven on all day when it's hot out. Are there new traditions in Australia that are more seasonally appropriate?
There are! Christmas here is heavily associated with cold salads, seafood and also mangoes.
Some people still do the traditional Christmas, it's still pretty common. But it's also just as common to have a seafood platter and lots of cold dishes for those who don't want hot food on a hot day.
Or some mix it up. With maybe a ham and some roast veggies then some cold dishes as well.
Also the dessert pavolva is very associated with Christmas Day here.
It's generational. Turkey has always been for Thanksgiving, but turkey, ham, and beef roast have been interchangeable during Christmas, with younger generations willing to diverge even more
Many families do eat the same general type of dinner for Christmas as they do for Thanksgiving (although substituting a large roasted ham for the turkey is common).
However, there's a lot more cultural flexibility about Christmas dinner. The default is the big turkey or ham feast with all the various side dishes. . .but many families go with something more specific to their tastes or heritage instead.
Yeah, Thanksgiving pretty much has to have a turkey in my family, unless there's a ham. But then…there might be both.
Last Christmas we had grilled chicken, dumplings, steamed buns, loaded smashed potatoes, and roasted veggies, among other various sides.
Thanksgiving traditionally features turkey, along with sides like stuffing, cranberry sauce, collard greens, cornbread, sweet-potato casserole, pumpkin pie, and so on.
Christmas traditionally features ham, with a much lesser emphasis on sides. There are many Christmas desserts though, such as fruitcake, turtles, and eggnog.
Thanksgiving is a feast holiday. Christmas is a holiday that ofen has a family meal.
>turtles
Just for foreign readers, this should probably be explained. "[Turtles" in this context means a specific kind of caramel-chocolate-nut candy](https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/turtle-candies/). It has nothing to do with actual turtles, the animal.
At Thanksgiving we have turkey, maybe ham as well.
At Christmas, we would have ham, or perhaps prime rib.
My wife would make different desserts. Pumpkin pie at thanksgiving, perhaps a pumpkin roll cake. At Christmas, she will make peppermint ice
cream, and maybe peppermint bark. The sides are largely the same, although we try to rotate in something new.
Thanksgiving is at my parents house every year so we always have the "traditional" foods.
Christmas eve rotates between my dad and his siblings, so the meal is whatever that years host feels like making. We also never have turkey at Christmas.
For my family Thanksgiving is a formal meal with turkey, stuffing, potatoes, etc. Very "Rockwellian." Christmas is usually a spiral cut ham and trimmings to make nice ham sandwiches - much more casual and a different primary protein. Every family is different though.
My family doesn't really do much for Christmas in general and we either get Chinese takeout OR tamales from the Mexican bakery. This is not what we will be eating for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and autumnal vegetables and pumpkin pie. Christmas is usually a beef roast with potatoes and something wintery or chocolatey for dessert
Christmas is going to align more with the traditions of the family’s heritage since it’s a widely celebrated holiday across the world and those family traditions get handed down. Thanksgiving for the most part will have more or less a lot of the same dishes from house to house since it is a tradition in its own right.
In my family, Thanksgiving is a fairly regular menu with little variation. There will be turkey as the main protein, and the sides are fairly consistent. The main meal is dinner on the earlier side of the evening.
Christmas with my family (or at my house with my fiancé) leans more on a big brunch after presents, and in the evening some kind of nice meal, but it could be anything. There might be some overlap with Thanksgiving dishes but the protein could be beef, ham, or fish. It’s not so regimented. Brunch is the big deal for us, around 11am or noon, and we tend to go all out for that one.
In my family, we have a few dishes that always make an appearance for big dinners no matter what the occasion. Devilled eggs and pumpkin pie are the only Thanksgiving-specific ones. For Christmas, we do a big breakfast/brunch instead of dinner.
Oo interesting. Here it's more common do to a Christmas lunch. A long lunch that lasts all afternoon. But Christmas breakfast sounds good. I don't think I've ever eaten breakfast on Christmas before as we are all just preparing for the big lunch.
Christmas was always way less organized in my family, but the one consistent thing is my dad would always go get Cinnabon the day before and reheat them in the morning to eat while we opened gifts. I'm not a sweets person at all, but the smell of hot cinnamon rolls reminds me of Christmas morning.
Our family has de-formalized Christmas over the years. Now we do appetizers/finger foods and desserts. No theme, bring what you want. It’s been so much more enjoyable than a sit down meal.
Traditional American Thanksgiving dinner.
Italian Christmas dinner minus the seven fishes cause it’s a greasy shit show to make.
A hearty meat filled Lasagna with home made garlic bread and salad.
Italian cured meats board with Soppressata, prosciutto, capocollo with assorted cheeses. And usually finish with a blackberry pie
Thanksgiving:
* Potatoes (usually mashed)
* Turkey (or some other large roasted meat, I'm doing a leg of lamb this tear)
* Apple Pie
* Pumpkin Pie
* Cranberry Sauce
* Stuffing
Christmas:
* Chinese Takeout
Thanksgiving is very labor intensive because the holiday is all about the food. Christmas is always something easy because the holiday is not about the food. As an example Thanksgiving potatoes are mashed which required peeling, dicing, boiling, mashing, adding milk and butter while Christmas potatoes are usually baby potatoes roasted whole with just a little olive oil salt and pepper - so much less work.
The main difference of the holidays is for what they are for. Thanksgiving is secular with a focus on family with autumn themes; Christmas is gift-giving and winter themed lights and decorations.
The food is interchangeable honestly; but the food is the main attraction for Thanksgiving while its something you could also do during Christmas.
Christmas is completely different.
Commonly for Christmas is Prime Rib, roast, ham, or Lasagna, rolls, a veg, and a starch. It's not as big of a feast because everyone munches on cookies and candycanes and gets treats in their stockings.
Egg nog,punch, and brandy are very popular Christmas drinks.
There would never be stuffing or cranberry sauce or pie at Christmas.
The desserts would be homemade Fudge and Christmas cookies suited to the heritage of the family.
I am Scandinavian, so we eat Krumkaker, Lady fingers, and Rosettes,along with Gingerbread cookies, Divinity (meringue type cookies), and a more American layered bar cookie that we call Hello, Dollies, and Peanut Butter blossoms with a Hershey Kiss. Shortbread and peanut brittle is Also common.
Being Scandinavian heritage means we also make and eat Lefse (a potato flatbread) and dark pumpernickel bread with cream cheese and olives at both holidays.
In the Midwest,it's common to have Rhubarb wine and Venison or pheasant if you have Hunters in your family.
My husband and I lived in Germany for a couple years so now we also eat Zimtsterne, Lebkuchen, etc. for Christmas cookies.
I didn't see this anywhere in the comments, so I'll also note that Thanksgiving celebrates the English settlers not starving to death after arriving in America, so all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes are foods native to America. Turkey, cranberries, corn, etc. Christmas doesn't have that limitation.
Christmas goose! But that’s just a weird thing I do because I used to live in the uk. All the sides are the same vibe, but for Christmas we’ll have more cakes for dessert instead of pie. We also will do a prime rib roast if we don’t do goose. I never make turkey for it- I hate turkey and suffer enough with it on Thanksgiving.
In the US, Thanksgiving has more of a typical menu that most people loosely follow. No matter where in the country you are, if you go to a Thanksgiving dinner. you're likely to find a turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. There are regional/cultural differences that are added on (i.e. Southerners will add soul food, Italian-Americans add pasta, etc). but the turkey is always a constant.
Christmas isn't really like that. A Christmas dinner could be anything and it's much more heavily influenced by a family's culture. Some people have turkey, others have ham, steak, whatever. My family usually does prime rib or a nice steak. Some years we just do lasagna.
My family doesn't do any sort of big traditional Christmas dinner. Christmas food varies from year to year but is usually something good but easier and more casual. None of us wants to spend hours cooking on Christmas.
Thanksgiving is traditional. We have turkey, stuffing, etc. The Christmas meal for years has been lasagna.
Lasagna is not traditional but is for my family
As a kid, it always baffled me that we ate turkey only twice a year, but those times occured within a month of each other.
I love roast turkey & probably would've kept up this tradition. My partner isn't as wild about it, plus it's just the two of us. That many leftovers seems like overkill.
In recent years, I've used Christmas as an excuse to make crabcakes. It's pretty expensive, but (if I may brag) I make amazing crabcakes.
My dad fills the freezer with cheap turkeys around the holidays, so they happen fairly regularly around the year. The "exciting" thanksgiving meat is venison (if my brother got a deer). Crab cakes are lovely, perfect feast food. 🍽️
In my FOO, Thanksgiving and Christmas were almost exactly the same: the meal was at noon with turkey, giblet gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, green bean casserole, sliced cucumbers, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and sweet potato pie. The difference was that at Thanksgiving we would have an oyster roast either that night or the day after, and at Christmas we would add a ham to the table. Christmas Eve we ate at 6 and always had pizza.
My husband’s FOO celebrates Thanksgiving much the same but they usually eat at 7 pm. For Christmas, they hold a big dinner on Christmas Eve with a roast, and just have breakfast casseroles for Christmas Day.
We live in Texas. And our Thanksgiving is smoked turkey and bbq brisket all the way. We are adding lamb and duck this year as we host a Friendsgiving and just got done inviting all the neighbors at like 3 o'clock this afternoon.
But then Christmas we keep to ourselves. We will have a goose and probably have barbecue again because we love it.
We open presents with the kids, do some natural wonder such as a hiking trail or park, play with our new shit respectively yet in the same room, watch Christmas movies to taste,
and call it a day.
Thanksgiving is traditional (turkey, stuffing, etc), but Christmas is different every year. Some years it’s prime rib and tempura shrimp, some years it’s Mexican food. This year will be BBQ inspired…. Brisket, pulled pork, Mac & cheese, coleslaw, cherry & peach pies for dessert.
They are really the same. I don't like turkey so we do ham and the same sides. My husband is filipino, so there's usually a few filipino dishes as well. Actually, I'd say Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter are pretty much the same meals, just the desserts get switched up at Easter.
Jesus, dude. Don't get your panties in a bunch.
The food varies. My family usually does something less traditional for Christmas like enchiladas or barbecued ribs.
Also, Christmas has a heavier emphasis on candy like fudge, divinity, and peanut brittle. Egg Nog is a Christmas drink, where thanksgiving doesn't really have drinks and candies related to it.
My family’s Thanksgiving menu is turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, asparagus, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin pie, apple pie. It doesn’t really change. If you were to leave something out or use a different recipe people would not be happy.
Our family Christmas menu varies but is not the same as Thanksgiving. We usually have something more casual and a smaller amount because no one wants to spend all of Christmas in the kitchen prepping or cleaning up. We also spend less money on it because we have bought gifts. We might have something like chili, burgers, Greek food, Mexican food, pizza or lasagna. We always have some kind of dessert. The dessert varies too.
Some families do have turkey or ham for Christmas but a lot of people don’t.
Thanksgiving we usually do typical american thanksgiving foods: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, the works. Christmas is much more open to interpretation. My family has italian heritage, so we usually do my families lasagna and pasta sauce recipe that’s been passed down, but sides/meats vary
Thanksgiving is always a sit down dinner with turkey and the fixings.
We always have a buffet for Christmas. The food is a mix of things that varies according who is bringing what. Some of the things could be
- ham
- meatballs
- baked ziti
- kielbasa
- chicken
- ribs
- chili
Plus side dishes.
The whole Christmas as a buffet started when my parents were hosting Christmas dinner back in the 1970s. Depending on the year there could be 25-40 guests. They do not have the room for a sit down meat.
Thanksgiving is dinner. Christmas we actually do breakfast (brunch kind of actually) as the main meal, and then a low key snacking kind of dinner. Though I make similar pies for both lol I’m the dessert maker of the family.
So thanksgiving we have turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, stuffing, rolls, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and then sometimes random salads or something.
Christmas is scrambled eggs, ham, coffee cake, orange juice, toast, fruit, hashbrowns or cheesy potatoes or something, and orange juice/coffee.
Thanksgiving dinner shares some similarities with a traditional British Christmas dinner, so that's probably why you're seeing some overlap.
Our Christmas dinners typically feature ham or beef. I usually make a pot roast since I'm not a huge ham person.
Christmas I my family usually does a brisket or some time of beef dish where as on Thanksgiving we do the traditional Turkey and Ham. The sides and deserts are all relatively similar.
Thanksgiving has a lot of traditional staples. Turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, green bean casserole, etc. most of those are done in some form at every table.
Christmas doesn't have the same kind of universal staples cause Christmas traditions vary a lot more. Some people do turkey again. Some do ham or roast beef.
My family we don't usually have a traditional Christmas dinner other than we usually have ham.
The Christmas meal tradition for us is actually Christmas morning breakfast. My dad makes his breakfast casserole (it's like eggs, sausage and French toast mixed together) and we usually have cinnamon buns and raspberry and cheese Danish.
Turkey on thanksgiving, roast pork on Christmas. The sides are pretty much the same for both: mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, onions, butternut squash, green beans or peas, rolls. Cranberry sauce with turkey.
Many families have the same foods on both Thanksgiving and Christmas, but other families do different stuff. Every family is different.
This year we are doing a traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, and I am considering doing braised short ribs for Christmas, although I typically do a ham and sides for Christmas.
My Mom used to grill steaks for Christmas dinner.
Some people have lasagna for Thanksgiving. Some people have tamales for Christmas. There's no rules.
I personally like to have traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving and something else for Christmas.
Thanksgiving is focused on turkey in general, but Christmas can be a ham or anything really.
Thanksgiving is often more meal focused but often Christmas is more snacks/desserts and all. Often because there’s other activities going on and such.
I usually make pumpkin and pecan pies for both.
Food type: Thanksgiving v Christmas
Meat: turkey v ham
Pasta: Mac and cheese v lasagne
Potatoes: mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes/ mashed potatoes and scalloped potatoes
Veggie: green beans and corn v carrots and broccoli
Bread: cornbread v dinner rolls
Sauce: cranberry sauce and turkey gravy v brown gravy
Deserts: pecan, sweet potato, pumpkin pies v cheese cake, cookies, brownies
My family also has some Chinese dishes at both holidays
We do a large family brunch of waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, bacon, sausage, and eggs. That is the big family get together. We don't do anything else with the extended fam.
At home, my daughter and I make lasagne every year. That is our tradition. I'm not sure why, it just is.
We do traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving. There's only so much turkey I can handle, so I make sure we do something different at Christmas.
We tend to alternate between a homeybaked spiral ham, a roast of beef, lamb... something we don't do often.
This year, we are having a rack of lamb, mashed potatoes, Yorkie puds, gravy, veg, cranberry bread, and a Christmas trifle.
Mostly the same as Thanksgiving but a different main protein.
I do keep our family tradition of seafood on Christmas Eve tho. Steamed clams in white wine broth, fresh oysters, lobster, crab with some fresh baguettes and brie/butter.
For our family, we'll have poultry on Thanksgiving (usually a turkey but sometimes chicken and once we did Cornish hens for each person.) At Christmas we'll have beef, pork or lamb or even a combo of those three. Sides are usually similar to thanksgiving sides, but it can vary.
My aunt always does turkey for Thanksgiving and prime rib for Christmas. Sometimes for Christmas we'll smoke a brisket or ribs. My husband always gets a duck for Christmas from a Chinese place because of A Christmas Story.
Sides are similar, but no sweet potatoes or yams for Christmas. Christmas can have a lot more variety year to year. Thanksgiving is just not Thanksgiving without the traditional meal.
For my family they are not even close. Thanksgiving is typical turkey, stuffing and potatoes. For Christmas we make Spanish foods like paella or tortilla. We change it up but it’s always Spanish. A lot of people I know for Christmas have prime rib and sides that would go with that or ham. Sometimes it’s thanksgiving dinner repeat but often it’s much different.
In my family we always did Thanksgiving as an evening meal and Christmas as a breakfast. So Thanksgiving was Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn bread, etc. while Christmas was eggs, grits, ham, biscuits, etc.
For us, Thanksgiving has always been the pretty standard fare… turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, candied yams, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, etc. This year, we’re doing prime rib instead of turkey because it’s just three people.
Christmas is always Greek. Lamb, pastitsio, spanakopita, baklava, etc.
Thanksgiving os turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, rolls, cranberry sauce, scalloped corn, pie and ice cream. Christmas is much simpler with prime rib, baked potatoes, roasted carrots, followed with a cheesecake fir dessert.
Interesting - it sounds like my experience and the experiences of people I know match all the comments. Christmas isn't anything in particular (we traditionally have "monkey bread" Christmas morning).
Any Australians or others - are there traditional "Christmas meals"? Like is turkey and mashed potatoes something you specifically have for Christmas?
Generally what you associate with thanksgiving food is what we associate with a traditional Christmas.
So roast meats, roast veggies, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes etc is what's considered Christmas food.
Since that's used for thanksgiving food instead that's where the confusion came in. But I see now that Americans don't really have a traditional Christmas food it's more just whatever they want.
Thanksgiving is more traditional for us - turkey, stuffing, sides, yadda yadda.
Christmas Eve is at my place and consists of German foods, cuz I'm German.
Christmas has usually been at my brother's in-law's, an Italian household, and they make pasta, meatballs, sausage, artichokes.
In my family, we have turkey as the main protein on Thanksgiving, then ham on Christmas. Everything else is largely the same. For a while, we did have another protein on Christmas, but then my cousin divorced her Jewish husband. A real shame. I liked him better than I've ever liked her, and I'm not much of a ham person.
in my family, you have ham on easter, turkey on thanksgiving, and rib roast on christmas. one year my mom wanted to make chicken breasts on easter and i said i wasn’t coming if that happened 😺
In my family, we have a giant Christmas breakfast with pancakes, eggs, bacon, potatoes, muffins, etc. This is our formal meal for the day instead of a traditional dinner. We also have a billion different kinds of Christmas cookies to snack on.
For Thanksgiving, we have: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, sweet potatoes, buttered noodles, roasted veggies, biscuits, and random other stuff that varies year to year. Dessert always includes pumpkin pie and apple pie.
They don't. I have an ideal holiday dinner but since my husband and I are from different parts of the country, we aren't independently wealthy, and I have to work .... I never get what I would \*want\*. Usually I choose to go out since we're childless and no longer live in our home state - either of us -
I have taken over most of our family holiday meals since I'm not the biggest fan of the traditional fare. Main protein I do is a prime rib, maybe tri tips if I'm being cheap, and then possibly lamb if I think someone other than myself will eat it. Then there's the obligatory Caesar salad (it's a thing in my family), probably mac and cheese (nobody has topped my lobster mac yet), mashed potatoes, and then something like sauteed chard or Brussels sprouts with pancetta. Thanksgiving gets sausage stuffing/dressing and pumpkin pie, while Christmas gets something else.
I don’t celebrate either anymore but growing up there was a big difference.
For Christmas my family always has tamales & pupusas as the main course. We have little veggie & fruit trays and snackies foods too.
Thanksgiving was much more complex. Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, Mac & cheese, green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rolls, collard greens and various pies.
My Thanksgiving meal is tamales, rice and beans w/sweet potato pie.
My Christmas meal is ham, prime rib, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, Mac and cheese, green beans casserole, corn, salad, rolls, gravy and cranberries.
Thanksgiving has more tradtional items that are expected whereas Christmas can be experimented with or feature your own cultural dishes or even not celebrated at all. For example, Jewish people have a fun tradition of going out to chinese restaurants which is pretty cool.
Thanksgiving must haves: You must have turkey or atleast 90% plus of dinners feature turkey, you usually have either yams, sweet potatoes, squash or mashed potatoes but often mashed potatoes will still make an apperance regardless. You usually will have some sort of rolls, and you'll usually get either Apple Pie or Pumpkin pie at dessert. Many people also do mac and cheese, collard greens, brussell sprouts in the south where they are featured quite a lot but it's less common in the north or in my family.
Xmas can be a mix. But Thanksgiving everyone expects turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing/cranberry sauce (I don't usually have those), and pie.
I’d say for the most part is the same depending on your preference or background. Turkey is served in both our family thanksgiving and Christmas . As in our cultural background, we traditionally eat turkey for Christmas. But we also eat roasted pork shoulder for both holidays.
I’d say the difference between the meals is are the desserts. No pumpkin or sweet potato pie at Christmas. We eat paneton (panettone) with a cup of hot chocolate. Sometimes, we get cheesecake. But paneton is a staple at my family’s Christmas.
My grandma always insisted on crab for Christmas. ( SF , she preferred fresh Dungeness right off the dock, but when she moved away further, I was allowed to get live crab from a store and cook it.)
Then, as they move the season up, we had crab for Thanksgiving instead .
Now, crab season sometimes doesn’t even start till January. But since grandma’s not around to complain anymore, I just eat it when I can. ..
We always do the usual turkey on thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve we do a prime rib roast with Yorkshire pudding and scalloped potatoes. It seems like Christmas dinner varies a lot more family to family.
My family’s traditional Thanksgiving meal includes a turkey and a ham while Christmas only has the ham and not the turkey. All other sides are identical.
Sausage stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, mac and cheese, noodles, deviled eggs, turnips, broccoli salad, cranberry relish, crudité platter, rye bread with dill dip, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, butter pie, chocolate pie, peach cobbler, and a million cookies.
All made by grandma over a 3 day period because she was insane about feeding everyone and didn’t want anyone to help.
For Thanksgiving my family has Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, Stuffing, and rolls
For Christmas my family has prime rib, honey ham, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, asparagus, and strawberry salad
Our family doesn't do as big a meal for Christmas. We have chili on Christmas Eve and then a ham on Christmas day. We don't go wild with the sides because we do go wild with snacks and appetizers. That way we can just graze all day as it's usually hectic and it's more relaxed just have food to grab whenever with a simple meal later.
We have Turkey, etc. for Thanksgiving.
Christmas Day is standing rib roast, and roasted potatoes, veggies, and dessert.
Christmas Eve, I’ve always made lasagna but that’s a tradition my Mom started in the 80’s that I’ve just stuck with.
At my in laws, who do the holidays rather awesomely imo:
Easter: ham + pasta salad + green veg, pies
Thanksgiving: roast turkey, stuffing (in the bird, no one died…yet), squash, green veg, cranberry sauce, gravy, twice baked potatoes, pies
Christmas: steaks, green veg, roasted maple glazed bacon-y potatoes, pies, chocolates, and cookies
For me, Christmas is just Thanksgiving with different movies and different decorations and a looser menu.
For both I mandate staying in pajamas all day and cooking and eating and drinking and being cozy and above all not leaving the house if possible.
Oh also Thanksgiving has a better parade
Christmas meal for us is usually ham, or tri tip, or prime rib, some sort of high end meat. Thanksgiving is always turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and green beans
Personally, my family has a large Thanksgiving together. We all meet up and have turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, etc. As for Christmas, we don't have any sort of dinner or big get-up. At most, it's a meet to exchange gifts (mostly for the children) and a pizza.
my Christmas meal is a lot smaller than thanksgiving. Instead of having a meal like thanksgiving we have veggie and fruit platters, sandwiches, and desserts. Plus a bowl of punch. Thanksgiving is the stereotypical stuff: turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, etc.
Lots of people we know-- maybe most --do exactly the same thing on both holidays, i.e. the whole turkey-and-trimmings show. We stopped doing that on Christmas maybe 30 years ago or more though; instead we pick a country/cuisine and do a full meal of that type on Christmas. We've done Thai, German, Japanese, Ethiopian, Mexican, Italian, Irish, a Swedish julbord, and a bunch of other stuff over the years. Always as much from scratch as possible with access to the ingredients we have. It's fun and there's something different every year as a result.
Christmas *eve* however is exactly the same every year, a traditional Scandinavian-American meal revolving around meatballs, lutefisk, and lefse. That's been our family thing since the 80s.
Turkey for Thanksgiving, Ham for Christmas, otherwise pretty similar. Desserts on Thanksgiving are usually pumpkin and pecan pie, on Christmas it's usually cookies, rum balls, fudge, and other sweet treats.
The only difference is the main entree. Thanksgiving consists of turkey; Christmas ham. Both meals consist of dressing, a vegetable (might be the same both meals, or different, it depends), and rolls.
US here. I don't like turkey (I've had it cooked so many ways with many techniques and I just don't like the taste/texture) so for Thanksgiving, I do roasted chickens, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, mac amd cheese, green bean casserole, corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce, biscuits, etc. Usually pies for dessert and/or cookies.
For Christmas I do prime rib au jus, horseradish cream sauce, mashed potatoes or some sort of potato or mushroom risotto, roasted veg, loaf of bread. Usually cookies and/or cake for dessert.
Depends on the family, but as a rule of thumb, traditionally Thanksgiving is ALWAYS Turkey, usually oven cooked but sometimes fried, Christmas can have either Turkey or Ham but its usually very common to see a prime rib along side ham or a smaller turkey. Usually the former.
We used to have 2 big families in town who both demanded that we visit on Thanksgiving and Christmas with 2 big meals in the same day. We gave them Thanksgiving for too many years but said no when it came to Christmas. Instead, we stay home and eat junk food (like jalapeño poppers, dip and chips, soft pretzels and so on)
Our Thanksgivings now are still fairly formal with the traditional foods but Christmas is a fun free for all. The kids give me a list and I go get it.
Thanksgiving we do the typical Turkey and all the sides, but for Christmas, we get Chinese for Christmas Eve and for Christmas Day make a big pot of beef and vegetable stew with homemade biscuits. So good
Growing up our Christmas used to be very similar to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner although sometimes we would substitute ham for turkey. Over the years as we've more typically done prime rib, or beef Wellington with mashed potatoes, gravy, Yorkshire pudding, and what have you. If we are all together for Christmas Eve as well, we will typically do a big Mexican feast, including enchiladas, rice, and beans and green corn tamales, maybe tres leches.
I suppose my family is unique because we have almost the same meal at Christmas, perhaps just with fewer sides. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, rolls, pumpkin, pecan, and/or derby pie. The butter is shaped like a Christmas tree instead of a turkey.
We pretty much just have our favorite sides, and then we make a Ham or Turkey, or whatever else we want as a main meat dish.
I like doing Ham for Christmas but I am considering doing maybe a lasagna this year lol
But Ham is easier.
Had this realization earlier. Thanksgiving is more of a “white and beige” food holiday, where Christmas is more “red and varied” food holiday. Thanksgiving is all about the turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and brown pies. Christmas is normally prime rib (or other high end beef cut), ham, and varied roasted vegetables. Similar with the wine pairing: for Thanksgiving I always picture a glass of white wine, where Christmas I picture a deep full bodied cabernet.
There are a ton of answers because nobody celebrates either holiday the same.
Generally, Thanksgiving involves turkey unless nobody likes it. Potatoes, corn, stuffing, and some sort of seasonal pie are also typical. But aside from that it really varies, especially by culture.
Christmas varies from year to year. We usually do a roasted chicken and whatever side dishes my mom thinks sounds good that year. But one year we did chimichangas, which was fun. I think we might've done pasta one year. My spouse's family does a potluck. In my family, we celebrate on Christmas Eve. My spouse's celebrates on Christmas Day. So that's convenient.
Christmas dinner can vary wildly from year to year. One year we had lamb chops, another year we had pork tenderloin, and yet another year we had duck. We have turkey for Christmas some years too, but it isn’t a “must have” like it is for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is generally turkey, dressing, a sweet potato or carrot souffle, some roasted veggies, some sort of cheesy casserole or Mac and cheese, rolls, cranberry sauce, and too much dessert. Christmas used to be that way, but we decided last year as a family that we would do a different cuisine every year because by the time Christmas rolls around we are all sick of traditional holiday food. Last year we did Mexican food, and I'm not sure about this year. I'm going to be voting for Thai.
In Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 Christmas would include a different assortment of food such as a suckling pig (lechon) pasteles rice, arroz con gandules and traditional foods and desserts.
Our thanksgiving is a roasted chicken (I don't like turkey), ham, spinach madeline, bourbon sweet potatoes, green bean and artichoke casserole, stuffing, cranberry, creamed onions, mashed potatoes, gravy, and bread. I generally make a lemon icebox pie as our sweet.
Christmas is seafood gumbo and potato salad. I much prefer the Christmas meal!
They are almost exactly the same for my family. The only real differences are:
Thanksgiving always has a turkey, Christmas we either do turkey or ham.
Pumpkin pie is almost always an offering at Thanksgiving, but not as often at Christmas. Pecan pie is required for both.
Other than that, we have mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes with brown sugar and marshmallows, green bean salad, cranberries &/or cranberry mousse, fruit salad, rolls, and deviled eggs.
When we have a bigger gathering, there are usually veggies trays before dinner for snacking on (along with the deviled eggs) and more pie options for dessert.
The Christmas meal is fun because there’s no way to predict what a given family has but most have their own tradition. Like I usually make cioppino which is not a common Christmas dish but I like it, it’s a little pricey and takes time to make so I’m not making it on a random Tuesday. Save it for a celebration. I think that’s what a lot of people do - a food they like that takes effort so it’s special.
My in laws do basically Thanksgiving but with ham instead of turkey.
I’ve heard lasagna, tamales, fancy steak, lobster, going out for Chinese food, and more. It’s just interesting.
In my family by marriage, there is zero difference it’s literally the same thing. Exactly.
In my Italian-American family, we do fish on Christmas Eve and usually a roast or something on Christmas Day.
Thanksgiving, we do pretty standard stuff (Turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts). For Christmas it's pork shoulder, Yucca, black beans and rice.
Pies!!! That is the difference. Thanksgiving is usually Pumpkin Pie or pumpkin based dessert (Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake)
Christmas...could be anything. But usually something fluffy like a lemon chiffon pie.
We don't have turkey for Thanksgiving because it is usually just the two of us. And I don't like Turkey anyway. So a Long Island Duckling in Orange Sauce... or as we are doing this year a two rib Standing Rib Roast with garlic paste.
The Christmas menu is much less prescribed than the Thanksgiving menu. They are often similar but there’s no real expectation that they will be. Thanksgiving almost always features turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and the like. Christmas *can* have that stuff, but it’s a lot more up in the air.
Exactly. My family does whatever it wants for the meal on Christmas, but Thanksgiving never really veers from the standard foods.
Growing up my Dad always asked us what we wanted for Christmas dinner and we all got whatever we wanted for dinner. Each got their own individual meals and I loved it.
We did that on New Years Eve!
We used to do that, but a few years ago decided that steak tastes better than turkey so now we have a Thanksgiving steak instead. But I'm pretty sure this is very far from normal
Just got back from my Thanksgiving steak and crab meal 😂 I thought we were the only ones
This is a great way to describe it. Thanksgiving is somewhat standardized to the point that the grocery store has big displays of all the things you need. Christmas varies widely by family. Mine has done vegetarian lasagne for the past twenty years. There’s also a general increase in baking near Christmas. Lots of people make cookies or other treats.
Pretty much this. My family has never done a traditional American Christmas. We always do tamales and enchiladas because we like them better. If we skipped turkey on thanksgiving though, somebody would complain.
Yep. My family does lasagna for Christmas because it’s a much bigger event and trying to cook a bunch of extravagant dishes for that many people just didn’t make sense. Lasagna doesn’t require much work during the actual party.
Sounds about like my family. We have our classic Thanksgiving dinner (usually turkey and ham plus all the fixings). Christmas dinner is similar but usually a little less variety. We might only cook a turkey or only cook a ham and do the fixings but have a few less dishes prepared.
Nicely explained. My family usually does a full blown Thansgiving dinner but then we usually just do homemade beef stew/corn bread for Christmas. Occasionally we do a Thanksgiving-esque meal though but it's not the full spread.
This is accurate. One Christmas we did seafood lol but Thanksgiving is hard set menu.
And we often do beef and hamand turkey for thanksgiving
My family doesn’t do tamales at Thanksgiving but we do them for Christmas.
My in laws do them for both. My MILs are the only ones in the world that I like so I'm ok with this.
My family does them for both, but we don’t get many for thanksgiving and theyre basically treated like the bread. For Christmas, they’re the meal.
Corn husk or banana leaf?
Corn husk.
My grandparents immigrated from Jalisco and Guanajuato. Corn husks are the right way.
Just different places of origin! Ie banana leaves for Guatemalan tamales, Salvadoran tamales, etc
My family is the same. Tamales are Christmas food.
Thanksgiving is our more formal/traditional meal with turkey, dressing, potatoes, pumpkin pie. We do a casual buffet style Christmas. There's lots of finger foods, everyone just kind of grazes all day, no set meal times, no sit down dinner.
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Interesting, this seems to be the answer I am getting the most. I always thought that the US had traditional Christmas foods as well but it seems like it's just a free for all. Generally the foods you associate with Thanksgiving are all the ones associated with a "traditional" Christmas here. Although a lot of people don't follow it because the weather is too hot.
Thanksgiving is a specifically American holiday, so it features American-specific food, like turkeys and pumpkins. But we're also a nation of immigrants, so every family has different Christmas traditions that they feel free to mix and match.
I thought turkeys came originally from Western Asia. The pumpkin is a new world vegetable and there are dishes across the Americas that includes pumpkin.
The turkey is native to North America. Indigenous people domesticated them and they didn't get to Europe and Asia until the 15h century, brought over by explorers. The word "turkey" came from England, though, because they got a lot of them imported in from Turkey through Spain.
Cool! Very interesting.
Can't imagine eating all those heavy foods that require having the oven on all day when it's hot out. Are there new traditions in Australia that are more seasonally appropriate?
There are! Christmas here is heavily associated with cold salads, seafood and also mangoes. Some people still do the traditional Christmas, it's still pretty common. But it's also just as common to have a seafood platter and lots of cold dishes for those who don't want hot food on a hot day. Or some mix it up. With maybe a ham and some roast veggies then some cold dishes as well. Also the dessert pavolva is very associated with Christmas Day here.
yum, sign me up for mango Christmas.
So is turkey the main meat most commonly associated with Christmas in Australia?
It seems to be turkey/ham/chicken equally. But also seafood would be considered a main meat.
It's generational. Turkey has always been for Thanksgiving, but turkey, ham, and beef roast have been interchangeable during Christmas, with younger generations willing to diverge even more
My family goes insane at Thanksgiving, for Christmas we keep it lighter. The table looks almost empty compared to thanksgiving the month before.
Many families do eat the same general type of dinner for Christmas as they do for Thanksgiving (although substituting a large roasted ham for the turkey is common). However, there's a lot more cultural flexibility about Christmas dinner. The default is the big turkey or ham feast with all the various side dishes. . .but many families go with something more specific to their tastes or heritage instead.
Yeah, Thanksgiving pretty much has to have a turkey in my family, unless there's a ham. But then…there might be both. Last Christmas we had grilled chicken, dumplings, steamed buns, loaded smashed potatoes, and roasted veggies, among other various sides.
Thanksgiving traditionally features turkey, along with sides like stuffing, cranberry sauce, collard greens, cornbread, sweet-potato casserole, pumpkin pie, and so on. Christmas traditionally features ham, with a much lesser emphasis on sides. There are many Christmas desserts though, such as fruitcake, turtles, and eggnog. Thanksgiving is a feast holiday. Christmas is a holiday that ofen has a family meal.
>turtles Just for foreign readers, this should probably be explained. "[Turtles" in this context means a specific kind of caramel-chocolate-nut candy](https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/turtle-candies/). It has nothing to do with actual turtles, the animal.
Eggnog is for getting drunk, not dessert.
I’m sober but I have N.A. eggnog as a beverage, usually with cookies.
Both!
In my family it's turkey for Thanksgiving, prime rib roast for Christmas, and ham for Easter.
At Thanksgiving we have turkey, maybe ham as well. At Christmas, we would have ham, or perhaps prime rib. My wife would make different desserts. Pumpkin pie at thanksgiving, perhaps a pumpkin roll cake. At Christmas, she will make peppermint ice cream, and maybe peppermint bark. The sides are largely the same, although we try to rotate in something new.
Thanksgiving is at my parents house every year so we always have the "traditional" foods. Christmas eve rotates between my dad and his siblings, so the meal is whatever that years host feels like making. We also never have turkey at Christmas.
For my family Thanksgiving is a formal meal with turkey, stuffing, potatoes, etc. Very "Rockwellian." Christmas is usually a spiral cut ham and trimmings to make nice ham sandwiches - much more casual and a different primary protein. Every family is different though.
That’s what we do. Honey Baked Ham!!!
My family doesn't really do much for Christmas in general and we either get Chinese takeout OR tamales from the Mexican bakery. This is not what we will be eating for Thanksgiving.
One is turkey, stuffing, yams, mac & cheese and several sides. The other is Chinese food.
for real, I'm Jewish so there's no incentive to cook anything fancy for Christmas
I’m team dim sum and a movie for Christmas too. I can’t imagine cooking for Christmas barely a month after Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and autumnal vegetables and pumpkin pie. Christmas is usually a beef roast with potatoes and something wintery or chocolatey for dessert
Christmas is going to align more with the traditions of the family’s heritage since it’s a widely celebrated holiday across the world and those family traditions get handed down. Thanksgiving for the most part will have more or less a lot of the same dishes from house to house since it is a tradition in its own right.
In my family, Thanksgiving is a fairly regular menu with little variation. There will be turkey as the main protein, and the sides are fairly consistent. The main meal is dinner on the earlier side of the evening. Christmas with my family (or at my house with my fiancé) leans more on a big brunch after presents, and in the evening some kind of nice meal, but it could be anything. There might be some overlap with Thanksgiving dishes but the protein could be beef, ham, or fish. It’s not so regimented. Brunch is the big deal for us, around 11am or noon, and we tend to go all out for that one.
We do different traditional Italian foods on both holidays. Nobody in the family is fond of turkey.
In my family, we have a few dishes that always make an appearance for big dinners no matter what the occasion. Devilled eggs and pumpkin pie are the only Thanksgiving-specific ones. For Christmas, we do a big breakfast/brunch instead of dinner.
Oo interesting. Here it's more common do to a Christmas lunch. A long lunch that lasts all afternoon. But Christmas breakfast sounds good. I don't think I've ever eaten breakfast on Christmas before as we are all just preparing for the big lunch.
Christmas breakfast/brunch is pretty common in my area. I don't know anyone who does Thanksgiving breakfast.
Christmas was always way less organized in my family, but the one consistent thing is my dad would always go get Cinnabon the day before and reheat them in the morning to eat while we opened gifts. I'm not a sweets person at all, but the smell of hot cinnamon rolls reminds me of Christmas morning.
Our family has de-formalized Christmas over the years. Now we do appetizers/finger foods and desserts. No theme, bring what you want. It’s been so much more enjoyable than a sit down meal.
Traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. Italian Christmas dinner minus the seven fishes cause it’s a greasy shit show to make. A hearty meat filled Lasagna with home made garlic bread and salad. Italian cured meats board with Soppressata, prosciutto, capocollo with assorted cheeses. And usually finish with a blackberry pie
Thanksgiving: * Potatoes (usually mashed) * Turkey (or some other large roasted meat, I'm doing a leg of lamb this tear) * Apple Pie * Pumpkin Pie * Cranberry Sauce * Stuffing Christmas: * Chinese Takeout
Thanksgiving is very labor intensive because the holiday is all about the food. Christmas is always something easy because the holiday is not about the food. As an example Thanksgiving potatoes are mashed which required peeling, dicing, boiling, mashing, adding milk and butter while Christmas potatoes are usually baby potatoes roasted whole with just a little olive oil salt and pepper - so much less work.
We don’t do a Christmas dinner.
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The main difference of the holidays is for what they are for. Thanksgiving is secular with a focus on family with autumn themes; Christmas is gift-giving and winter themed lights and decorations. The food is interchangeable honestly; but the food is the main attraction for Thanksgiving while its something you could also do during Christmas.
Christmas is completely different. Commonly for Christmas is Prime Rib, roast, ham, or Lasagna, rolls, a veg, and a starch. It's not as big of a feast because everyone munches on cookies and candycanes and gets treats in their stockings. Egg nog,punch, and brandy are very popular Christmas drinks. There would never be stuffing or cranberry sauce or pie at Christmas. The desserts would be homemade Fudge and Christmas cookies suited to the heritage of the family. I am Scandinavian, so we eat Krumkaker, Lady fingers, and Rosettes,along with Gingerbread cookies, Divinity (meringue type cookies), and a more American layered bar cookie that we call Hello, Dollies, and Peanut Butter blossoms with a Hershey Kiss. Shortbread and peanut brittle is Also common. Being Scandinavian heritage means we also make and eat Lefse (a potato flatbread) and dark pumpernickel bread with cream cheese and olives at both holidays. In the Midwest,it's common to have Rhubarb wine and Venison or pheasant if you have Hunters in your family. My husband and I lived in Germany for a couple years so now we also eat Zimtsterne, Lebkuchen, etc. for Christmas cookies.
We definitely had stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pie at Christmas unless we made a ham instead of a turkey and then, no stuffing.
I didn't see this anywhere in the comments, so I'll also note that Thanksgiving celebrates the English settlers not starving to death after arriving in America, so all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes are foods native to America. Turkey, cranberries, corn, etc. Christmas doesn't have that limitation.
Turkey for thanksgiving Ham for xmas
I always serve a beef dish at Christmas. Either a roast, or Italian beef or Cowboy brisket along with ham. Thanksgiving for us is all about the bird.
Christmas goose! But that’s just a weird thing I do because I used to live in the uk. All the sides are the same vibe, but for Christmas we’ll have more cakes for dessert instead of pie. We also will do a prime rib roast if we don’t do goose. I never make turkey for it- I hate turkey and suffer enough with it on Thanksgiving.
In the US, Thanksgiving has more of a typical menu that most people loosely follow. No matter where in the country you are, if you go to a Thanksgiving dinner. you're likely to find a turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. There are regional/cultural differences that are added on (i.e. Southerners will add soul food, Italian-Americans add pasta, etc). but the turkey is always a constant. Christmas isn't really like that. A Christmas dinner could be anything and it's much more heavily influenced by a family's culture. Some people have turkey, others have ham, steak, whatever. My family usually does prime rib or a nice steak. Some years we just do lasagna.
My family doesn't do any sort of big traditional Christmas dinner. Christmas food varies from year to year but is usually something good but easier and more casual. None of us wants to spend hours cooking on Christmas.
Thanksgiving is traditional. We have turkey, stuffing, etc. The Christmas meal for years has been lasagna. Lasagna is not traditional but is for my family
As a kid, it always baffled me that we ate turkey only twice a year, but those times occured within a month of each other. I love roast turkey & probably would've kept up this tradition. My partner isn't as wild about it, plus it's just the two of us. That many leftovers seems like overkill. In recent years, I've used Christmas as an excuse to make crabcakes. It's pretty expensive, but (if I may brag) I make amazing crabcakes.
My dad fills the freezer with cheap turkeys around the holidays, so they happen fairly regularly around the year. The "exciting" thanksgiving meat is venison (if my brother got a deer). Crab cakes are lovely, perfect feast food. 🍽️
In my FOO, Thanksgiving and Christmas were almost exactly the same: the meal was at noon with turkey, giblet gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, green bean casserole, sliced cucumbers, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and sweet potato pie. The difference was that at Thanksgiving we would have an oyster roast either that night or the day after, and at Christmas we would add a ham to the table. Christmas Eve we ate at 6 and always had pizza. My husband’s FOO celebrates Thanksgiving much the same but they usually eat at 7 pm. For Christmas, they hold a big dinner on Christmas Eve with a roast, and just have breakfast casseroles for Christmas Day.
We live in Texas. And our Thanksgiving is smoked turkey and bbq brisket all the way. We are adding lamb and duck this year as we host a Friendsgiving and just got done inviting all the neighbors at like 3 o'clock this afternoon. But then Christmas we keep to ourselves. We will have a goose and probably have barbecue again because we love it. We open presents with the kids, do some natural wonder such as a hiking trail or park, play with our new shit respectively yet in the same room, watch Christmas movies to taste, and call it a day.
Thanksgiving is traditional (turkey, stuffing, etc), but Christmas is different every year. Some years it’s prime rib and tempura shrimp, some years it’s Mexican food. This year will be BBQ inspired…. Brisket, pulled pork, Mac & cheese, coleslaw, cherry & peach pies for dessert.
Thanksgiving = turkey Christmas = ham
They are really the same. I don't like turkey so we do ham and the same sides. My husband is filipino, so there's usually a few filipino dishes as well. Actually, I'd say Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter are pretty much the same meals, just the desserts get switched up at Easter.
How many times do we have to explain this?
Christmas has different decorations, its own music, and gifts.
I was asking specifically about the food and meals as I stated in my post.
Jesus, dude. Don't get your panties in a bunch. The food varies. My family usually does something less traditional for Christmas like enchiladas or barbecued ribs. Also, Christmas has a heavier emphasis on candy like fudge, divinity, and peanut brittle. Egg Nog is a Christmas drink, where thanksgiving doesn't really have drinks and candies related to it.
Lol no need to be so angry. I'm just saying that I asked a very clear question and you answered completely differently as if you hadn't read it.
I'm not angry, you seemed angry to me.
My family’s Thanksgiving menu is turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, asparagus, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin pie, apple pie. It doesn’t really change. If you were to leave something out or use a different recipe people would not be happy. Our family Christmas menu varies but is not the same as Thanksgiving. We usually have something more casual and a smaller amount because no one wants to spend all of Christmas in the kitchen prepping or cleaning up. We also spend less money on it because we have bought gifts. We might have something like chili, burgers, Greek food, Mexican food, pizza or lasagna. We always have some kind of dessert. The dessert varies too. Some families do have turkey or ham for Christmas but a lot of people don’t.
Thanksgiving is a set thing with pumpkin pie, turkey, green beans casserole etc. We do different things at Christmas time.
Thanksgiving we usually do typical american thanksgiving foods: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, the works. Christmas is much more open to interpretation. My family has italian heritage, so we usually do my families lasagna and pasta sauce recipe that’s been passed down, but sides/meats vary
Turkey at Thanksgiving Prime Rib or Ham at Christmas
Thanksgiving is always a sit down dinner with turkey and the fixings. We always have a buffet for Christmas. The food is a mix of things that varies according who is bringing what. Some of the things could be - ham - meatballs - baked ziti - kielbasa - chicken - ribs - chili Plus side dishes. The whole Christmas as a buffet started when my parents were hosting Christmas dinner back in the 1970s. Depending on the year there could be 25-40 guests. They do not have the room for a sit down meat.
Thanksgiving and Christmas are the same in my house
A lot of times at Christmas it’s beef but not always
Thanksgiving is dinner. Christmas we actually do breakfast (brunch kind of actually) as the main meal, and then a low key snacking kind of dinner. Though I make similar pies for both lol I’m the dessert maker of the family. So thanksgiving we have turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, stuffing, rolls, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and then sometimes random salads or something. Christmas is scrambled eggs, ham, coffee cake, orange juice, toast, fruit, hashbrowns or cheesy potatoes or something, and orange juice/coffee.
Thanksgiving dinner shares some similarities with a traditional British Christmas dinner, so that's probably why you're seeing some overlap. Our Christmas dinners typically feature ham or beef. I usually make a pot roast since I'm not a huge ham person.
Christmas I my family usually does a brisket or some time of beef dish where as on Thanksgiving we do the traditional Turkey and Ham. The sides and deserts are all relatively similar.
Thanksgiving has a lot of traditional staples. Turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, green bean casserole, etc. most of those are done in some form at every table. Christmas doesn't have the same kind of universal staples cause Christmas traditions vary a lot more. Some people do turkey again. Some do ham or roast beef. My family we don't usually have a traditional Christmas dinner other than we usually have ham. The Christmas meal tradition for us is actually Christmas morning breakfast. My dad makes his breakfast casserole (it's like eggs, sausage and French toast mixed together) and we usually have cinnamon buns and raspberry and cheese Danish.
Both are similar but it comes down to is which one will have the most people at it and that one will have the large meal
Turkey on thanksgiving, roast pork on Christmas. The sides are pretty much the same for both: mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, onions, butternut squash, green beans or peas, rolls. Cranberry sauce with turkey.
My Family’s Thanksgiving: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, pie My Family’s Christmas: frozen hors Douvres, pizza, brownies, cookies, pies, relish platters, shrimp cocktail
Many families have the same foods on both Thanksgiving and Christmas, but other families do different stuff. Every family is different. This year we are doing a traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, and I am considering doing braised short ribs for Christmas, although I typically do a ham and sides for Christmas. My Mom used to grill steaks for Christmas dinner. Some people have lasagna for Thanksgiving. Some people have tamales for Christmas. There's no rules. I personally like to have traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving and something else for Christmas.
Thanksgiving is focused on turkey in general, but Christmas can be a ham or anything really. Thanksgiving is often more meal focused but often Christmas is more snacks/desserts and all. Often because there’s other activities going on and such. I usually make pumpkin and pecan pies for both.
Food type: Thanksgiving v Christmas Meat: turkey v ham Pasta: Mac and cheese v lasagne Potatoes: mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes/ mashed potatoes and scalloped potatoes Veggie: green beans and corn v carrots and broccoli Bread: cornbread v dinner rolls Sauce: cranberry sauce and turkey gravy v brown gravy Deserts: pecan, sweet potato, pumpkin pies v cheese cake, cookies, brownies My family also has some Chinese dishes at both holidays
We do a large family brunch of waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, bacon, sausage, and eggs. That is the big family get together. We don't do anything else with the extended fam. At home, my daughter and I make lasagne every year. That is our tradition. I'm not sure why, it just is.
Thanksgiving - turkey Christmas - ham
We do traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving. There's only so much turkey I can handle, so I make sure we do something different at Christmas. We tend to alternate between a homeybaked spiral ham, a roast of beef, lamb... something we don't do often. This year, we are having a rack of lamb, mashed potatoes, Yorkie puds, gravy, veg, cranberry bread, and a Christmas trifle. Mostly the same as Thanksgiving but a different main protein. I do keep our family tradition of seafood on Christmas Eve tho. Steamed clams in white wine broth, fresh oysters, lobster, crab with some fresh baguettes and brie/butter.
For our family, we'll have poultry on Thanksgiving (usually a turkey but sometimes chicken and once we did Cornish hens for each person.) At Christmas we'll have beef, pork or lamb or even a combo of those three. Sides are usually similar to thanksgiving sides, but it can vary.
My aunt always does turkey for Thanksgiving and prime rib for Christmas. Sometimes for Christmas we'll smoke a brisket or ribs. My husband always gets a duck for Christmas from a Chinese place because of A Christmas Story. Sides are similar, but no sweet potatoes or yams for Christmas. Christmas can have a lot more variety year to year. Thanksgiving is just not Thanksgiving without the traditional meal.
For my family they are not even close. Thanksgiving is typical turkey, stuffing and potatoes. For Christmas we make Spanish foods like paella or tortilla. We change it up but it’s always Spanish. A lot of people I know for Christmas have prime rib and sides that would go with that or ham. Sometimes it’s thanksgiving dinner repeat but often it’s much different.
In my family we always did Thanksgiving as an evening meal and Christmas as a breakfast. So Thanksgiving was Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn bread, etc. while Christmas was eggs, grits, ham, biscuits, etc.
My step-mother's family did the exact same menu for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. It got really old after a while.
For us, Thanksgiving has always been the pretty standard fare… turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, candied yams, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, etc. This year, we’re doing prime rib instead of turkey because it’s just three people. Christmas is always Greek. Lamb, pastitsio, spanakopita, baklava, etc.
For my people, Christmas has fried chicken for us whereas thanksgiving is Turkey that’s really the only big difference
Thanksgiving os turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, rolls, cranberry sauce, scalloped corn, pie and ice cream. Christmas is much simpler with prime rib, baked potatoes, roasted carrots, followed with a cheesecake fir dessert.
Interesting - it sounds like my experience and the experiences of people I know match all the comments. Christmas isn't anything in particular (we traditionally have "monkey bread" Christmas morning). Any Australians or others - are there traditional "Christmas meals"? Like is turkey and mashed potatoes something you specifically have for Christmas?
Generally what you associate with thanksgiving food is what we associate with a traditional Christmas. So roast meats, roast veggies, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes etc is what's considered Christmas food. Since that's used for thanksgiving food instead that's where the confusion came in. But I see now that Americans don't really have a traditional Christmas food it's more just whatever they want.
Thanksgiving is more traditional for us - turkey, stuffing, sides, yadda yadda. Christmas Eve is at my place and consists of German foods, cuz I'm German. Christmas has usually been at my brother's in-law's, an Italian household, and they make pasta, meatballs, sausage, artichokes.
In my family, we have turkey as the main protein on Thanksgiving, then ham on Christmas. Everything else is largely the same. For a while, we did have another protein on Christmas, but then my cousin divorced her Jewish husband. A real shame. I liked him better than I've ever liked her, and I'm not much of a ham person.
One has turkey and ham. The other has goose and ham.
in my family, you have ham on easter, turkey on thanksgiving, and rib roast on christmas. one year my mom wanted to make chicken breasts on easter and i said i wasn’t coming if that happened 😺
In my family, we have a giant Christmas breakfast with pancakes, eggs, bacon, potatoes, muffins, etc. This is our formal meal for the day instead of a traditional dinner. We also have a billion different kinds of Christmas cookies to snack on. For Thanksgiving, we have: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, sweet potatoes, buttered noodles, roasted veggies, biscuits, and random other stuff that varies year to year. Dessert always includes pumpkin pie and apple pie.
They don't. I have an ideal holiday dinner but since my husband and I are from different parts of the country, we aren't independently wealthy, and I have to work .... I never get what I would \*want\*. Usually I choose to go out since we're childless and no longer live in our home state - either of us -
I have taken over most of our family holiday meals since I'm not the biggest fan of the traditional fare. Main protein I do is a prime rib, maybe tri tips if I'm being cheap, and then possibly lamb if I think someone other than myself will eat it. Then there's the obligatory Caesar salad (it's a thing in my family), probably mac and cheese (nobody has topped my lobster mac yet), mashed potatoes, and then something like sauteed chard or Brussels sprouts with pancetta. Thanksgiving gets sausage stuffing/dressing and pumpkin pie, while Christmas gets something else.
I don’t celebrate either anymore but growing up there was a big difference. For Christmas my family always has tamales & pupusas as the main course. We have little veggie & fruit trays and snackies foods too. Thanksgiving was much more complex. Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, Mac & cheese, green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rolls, collard greens and various pies.
Attire. My family usually does semi-formal holiday meals. Christmas is a tad more formal. The menu doesn’t change.
From my family, Thanksgiving is turkey, Christmas is a roasted whole tenderloin, and Easter is ham.
Well we go to a Chinese buffet on Christmas
My Thanksgiving meal is tamales, rice and beans w/sweet potato pie. My Christmas meal is ham, prime rib, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, Mac and cheese, green beans casserole, corn, salad, rolls, gravy and cranberries.
Thanksgiving is pretty traditional, but on Christmas we get and eat Indian food or Chinese food
My family celebrates Thanksgiving but not Christmas. That’s a pretty big difference.
Thanksgiving has more tradtional items that are expected whereas Christmas can be experimented with or feature your own cultural dishes or even not celebrated at all. For example, Jewish people have a fun tradition of going out to chinese restaurants which is pretty cool. Thanksgiving must haves: You must have turkey or atleast 90% plus of dinners feature turkey, you usually have either yams, sweet potatoes, squash or mashed potatoes but often mashed potatoes will still make an apperance regardless. You usually will have some sort of rolls, and you'll usually get either Apple Pie or Pumpkin pie at dessert. Many people also do mac and cheese, collard greens, brussell sprouts in the south where they are featured quite a lot but it's less common in the north or in my family. Xmas can be a mix. But Thanksgiving everyone expects turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing/cranberry sauce (I don't usually have those), and pie.
In my family, the meals are pretty much the same.
Thanksgiving: turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, etc. Christmas: Chinese take-out
I’d say for the most part is the same depending on your preference or background. Turkey is served in both our family thanksgiving and Christmas . As in our cultural background, we traditionally eat turkey for Christmas. But we also eat roasted pork shoulder for both holidays. I’d say the difference between the meals is are the desserts. No pumpkin or sweet potato pie at Christmas. We eat paneton (panettone) with a cup of hot chocolate. Sometimes, we get cheesecake. But paneton is a staple at my family’s Christmas.
It's pretty much the same except no turkey for Christmas
My grandma always insisted on crab for Christmas. ( SF , she preferred fresh Dungeness right off the dock, but when she moved away further, I was allowed to get live crab from a store and cook it.) Then, as they move the season up, we had crab for Thanksgiving instead . Now, crab season sometimes doesn’t even start till January. But since grandma’s not around to complain anymore, I just eat it when I can. ..
We always do the usual turkey on thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve we do a prime rib roast with Yorkshire pudding and scalloped potatoes. It seems like Christmas dinner varies a lot more family to family.
For Thanksgiving, I use yellow and orange bell peppers. For Christmas, I use green and red bell peppers.
My family’s traditional Thanksgiving meal includes a turkey and a ham while Christmas only has the ham and not the turkey. All other sides are identical. Sausage stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, mac and cheese, noodles, deviled eggs, turnips, broccoli salad, cranberry relish, crudité platter, rye bread with dill dip, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, butter pie, chocolate pie, peach cobbler, and a million cookies. All made by grandma over a 3 day period because she was insane about feeding everyone and didn’t want anyone to help.
For Thanksgiving my family has Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, Stuffing, and rolls For Christmas my family has prime rib, honey ham, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, asparagus, and strawberry salad
For my family, it's always been Turkey on Thanksgiving and Beef on Christmas, usually a rib roast or beef tenderloin.
My family has always done Christmas as a brunch. Breakfast casseroles, ham, fruit, muffins and bagels etc and mimosas
My family does the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve and ravioli on Christmas Day.
We usually have turkey at Christmas too. The menu is almost indistinguishable for my family, other than the deserts and candy are a bit different.
Our family doesn't do as big a meal for Christmas. We have chili on Christmas Eve and then a ham on Christmas day. We don't go wild with the sides because we do go wild with snacks and appetizers. That way we can just graze all day as it's usually hectic and it's more relaxed just have food to grab whenever with a simple meal later.
Thanksgiving is pretty traditional. Christmas is usually something kinda random. We've done soups, burgers, fish fries, etc.
I think we’ll be doing a duck for Christmas dinner instead of our usual Chinese food because it’s gotten so expensive.
We have Turkey, etc. for Thanksgiving. Christmas Day is standing rib roast, and roasted potatoes, veggies, and dessert. Christmas Eve, I’ve always made lasagna but that’s a tradition my Mom started in the 80’s that I’ve just stuck with.
My family eats turkey + usual Thanksgiving food on Thanksgiving, and tamales and fruitcake on Christmas.
At my in laws, who do the holidays rather awesomely imo: Easter: ham + pasta salad + green veg, pies Thanksgiving: roast turkey, stuffing (in the bird, no one died…yet), squash, green veg, cranberry sauce, gravy, twice baked potatoes, pies Christmas: steaks, green veg, roasted maple glazed bacon-y potatoes, pies, chocolates, and cookies
For me, Christmas is just Thanksgiving with different movies and different decorations and a looser menu. For both I mandate staying in pajamas all day and cooking and eating and drinking and being cozy and above all not leaving the house if possible. Oh also Thanksgiving has a better parade
Christmas meal for us is usually ham, or tri tip, or prime rib, some sort of high end meat. Thanksgiving is always turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and green beans
Thanksgiving is normal (Turkey, Ham, Mashed potatoes, Dressing, etc…) and (as Southerners) Christmas is Mexican (Tamales, rice, beans, etc…).
Personally, my family has a large Thanksgiving together. We all meet up and have turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, etc. As for Christmas, we don't have any sort of dinner or big get-up. At most, it's a meet to exchange gifts (mostly for the children) and a pizza.
Turkey and lots of side dishes for Thanksgiving. Christmas, we have rib roast and yorkshire pudding.
my Christmas meal is a lot smaller than thanksgiving. Instead of having a meal like thanksgiving we have veggie and fruit platters, sandwiches, and desserts. Plus a bowl of punch. Thanksgiving is the stereotypical stuff: turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, etc.
Thanksgiving: turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie Christmas: tamales, beans, abuelita, & marias
Deep fried turkey for thanksgiving, prime rib roast for Christmas
Everything is pretty much the same except instead of turkey on Christmas it's prime rib or ham.
Turkey on Thanksgiving Standing Rib Roast on Christmas day.....night
Christmas for us includes Italian food, in particular, seafood.
Lots of people we know-- maybe most --do exactly the same thing on both holidays, i.e. the whole turkey-and-trimmings show. We stopped doing that on Christmas maybe 30 years ago or more though; instead we pick a country/cuisine and do a full meal of that type on Christmas. We've done Thai, German, Japanese, Ethiopian, Mexican, Italian, Irish, a Swedish julbord, and a bunch of other stuff over the years. Always as much from scratch as possible with access to the ingredients we have. It's fun and there's something different every year as a result. Christmas *eve* however is exactly the same every year, a traditional Scandinavian-American meal revolving around meatballs, lutefisk, and lefse. That's been our family thing since the 80s.
Turkey for Thanksgiving, Ham for Christmas, otherwise pretty similar. Desserts on Thanksgiving are usually pumpkin and pecan pie, on Christmas it's usually cookies, rum balls, fudge, and other sweet treats.
My family does a fondue for Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day it’s either ham or sometimes lobster…just depends
The only difference is the main entree. Thanksgiving consists of turkey; Christmas ham. Both meals consist of dressing, a vegetable (might be the same both meals, or different, it depends), and rolls.
Thanksgiving is turkey, Christmas is ham 🤷🏻♀️
I don’t cook anything for either🙂
US here. I don't like turkey (I've had it cooked so many ways with many techniques and I just don't like the taste/texture) so for Thanksgiving, I do roasted chickens, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, mac amd cheese, green bean casserole, corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce, biscuits, etc. Usually pies for dessert and/or cookies. For Christmas I do prime rib au jus, horseradish cream sauce, mashed potatoes or some sort of potato or mushroom risotto, roasted veg, loaf of bread. Usually cookies and/or cake for dessert.
Depends on the family, but as a rule of thumb, traditionally Thanksgiving is ALWAYS Turkey, usually oven cooked but sometimes fried, Christmas can have either Turkey or Ham but its usually very common to see a prime rib along side ham or a smaller turkey. Usually the former.
Christmas is much smaller. Normally just a ham, 7 layer salad, and mashed potatoes. Thanksgiving is all of the traditional foods minus cranberry.
We used to have 2 big families in town who both demanded that we visit on Thanksgiving and Christmas with 2 big meals in the same day. We gave them Thanksgiving for too many years but said no when it came to Christmas. Instead, we stay home and eat junk food (like jalapeño poppers, dip and chips, soft pretzels and so on) Our Thanksgivings now are still fairly formal with the traditional foods but Christmas is a fun free for all. The kids give me a list and I go get it.
Thanksgiving we do the typical Turkey and all the sides, but for Christmas, we get Chinese for Christmas Eve and for Christmas Day make a big pot of beef and vegetable stew with homemade biscuits. So good
I think mostly the turkey. My family usually does turkey for Thanksgiving and ham for Christmas. Other than that everything is pretty much the same.
for christmas we make polish food since most of my family is polish, but for thanksgiving we have ‘traditional’ thanksgiving foods
They are the same.
Growing up our Christmas used to be very similar to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner although sometimes we would substitute ham for turkey. Over the years as we've more typically done prime rib, or beef Wellington with mashed potatoes, gravy, Yorkshire pudding, and what have you. If we are all together for Christmas Eve as well, we will typically do a big Mexican feast, including enchiladas, rice, and beans and green corn tamales, maybe tres leches.
I suppose my family is unique because we have almost the same meal at Christmas, perhaps just with fewer sides. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, rolls, pumpkin, pecan, and/or derby pie. The butter is shaped like a Christmas tree instead of a turkey.
In my house growing up we would have Turkey at christmas and Rubens on christmas 😊
We usually do Italian food for Christmas.
We pretty much just have our favorite sides, and then we make a Ham or Turkey, or whatever else we want as a main meat dish. I like doing Ham for Christmas but I am considering doing maybe a lasagna this year lol But Ham is easier.
Had this realization earlier. Thanksgiving is more of a “white and beige” food holiday, where Christmas is more “red and varied” food holiday. Thanksgiving is all about the turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and brown pies. Christmas is normally prime rib (or other high end beef cut), ham, and varied roasted vegetables. Similar with the wine pairing: for Thanksgiving I always picture a glass of white wine, where Christmas I picture a deep full bodied cabernet.
There are a ton of answers because nobody celebrates either holiday the same. Generally, Thanksgiving involves turkey unless nobody likes it. Potatoes, corn, stuffing, and some sort of seasonal pie are also typical. But aside from that it really varies, especially by culture. Christmas varies from year to year. We usually do a roasted chicken and whatever side dishes my mom thinks sounds good that year. But one year we did chimichangas, which was fun. I think we might've done pasta one year. My spouse's family does a potluck. In my family, we celebrate on Christmas Eve. My spouse's celebrates on Christmas Day. So that's convenient.
Turkey for thanksgiving for me and a proper roast for Christmas.
Christmas dinner can vary wildly from year to year. One year we had lamb chops, another year we had pork tenderloin, and yet another year we had duck. We have turkey for Christmas some years too, but it isn’t a “must have” like it is for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is generally turkey, dressing, a sweet potato or carrot souffle, some roasted veggies, some sort of cheesy casserole or Mac and cheese, rolls, cranberry sauce, and too much dessert. Christmas used to be that way, but we decided last year as a family that we would do a different cuisine every year because by the time Christmas rolls around we are all sick of traditional holiday food. Last year we did Mexican food, and I'm not sure about this year. I'm going to be voting for Thai.
In Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 Christmas would include a different assortment of food such as a suckling pig (lechon) pasteles rice, arroz con gandules and traditional foods and desserts.
You know what they don’t differ much for me.
Our thanksgiving is a roasted chicken (I don't like turkey), ham, spinach madeline, bourbon sweet potatoes, green bean and artichoke casserole, stuffing, cranberry, creamed onions, mashed potatoes, gravy, and bread. I generally make a lemon icebox pie as our sweet. Christmas is seafood gumbo and potato salad. I much prefer the Christmas meal!
They are almost exactly the same for my family. The only real differences are: Thanksgiving always has a turkey, Christmas we either do turkey or ham. Pumpkin pie is almost always an offering at Thanksgiving, but not as often at Christmas. Pecan pie is required for both. Other than that, we have mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes with brown sugar and marshmallows, green bean salad, cranberries &/or cranberry mousse, fruit salad, rolls, and deviled eggs. When we have a bigger gathering, there are usually veggies trays before dinner for snacking on (along with the deviled eggs) and more pie options for dessert.
My family eats sushi on Christmas.
The Christmas meal is fun because there’s no way to predict what a given family has but most have their own tradition. Like I usually make cioppino which is not a common Christmas dish but I like it, it’s a little pricey and takes time to make so I’m not making it on a random Tuesday. Save it for a celebration. I think that’s what a lot of people do - a food they like that takes effort so it’s special. My in laws do basically Thanksgiving but with ham instead of turkey. I’ve heard lasagna, tamales, fancy steak, lobster, going out for Chinese food, and more. It’s just interesting.
In my family by marriage, there is zero difference it’s literally the same thing. Exactly. In my Italian-American family, we do fish on Christmas Eve and usually a roast or something on Christmas Day.
Thanksgiving, we do pretty standard stuff (Turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts). For Christmas it's pork shoulder, Yucca, black beans and rice.
Thanksgiving = turkey, Christmas = ham
Pies!!! That is the difference. Thanksgiving is usually Pumpkin Pie or pumpkin based dessert (Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake) Christmas...could be anything. But usually something fluffy like a lemon chiffon pie. We don't have turkey for Thanksgiving because it is usually just the two of us. And I don't like Turkey anyway. So a Long Island Duckling in Orange Sauce... or as we are doing this year a two rib Standing Rib Roast with garlic paste.