With a little input from the folks who will be at the table, I put together my menus for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner. I’ll be cooking Christmas Eve dinner at home this year, which is a change for us, and one I’m looking forward to. I’ll keep to the Italian tradition of having fish or seafood, although I’m certainly not making seven kinds. We’ll start with a shrimp cocktail (Jim will make his excellent cocktail sauce) and some puff pastry pinwheels filled with spinach and cheese. Our main course will be poached salmon served with a dill/creme fraiche sauce, accompanied by roasted white and green asparagus and a nice loaf of bread (served with truffle butter). Dessert will be Christmas cookies (and I will cheat and buy them at our local Italian pastry shop) and molten chocolate cakes.

Christmas breakfast at our house has, for the past several years, consisted of freshly made cream scones with clotted cream, lemon curd, and jam. There’s always a big pot of coffee and some tea for Jim. We see no reason to stray from this path.

Unlike the Cratchits, I’m not looking forward to putting a roast goose on my dinner table. At our house, dinner on the big day will be a small prime rib. This isn’t actually one of my favorite cuts of meat, but the menfolk adore it, and I certainly don’t mind roasting one once a year. We’ll have roasted brussels sprouts and garlic mashed potatoes with that, and dinner rolls (I’ve not yet gotten up the nerve to do Yorkshire pudding). I feel like we should have something a bit lighter to start, so I’m thinking we might actually begin with a salad of mixed greens dressed simply with olive oil and my good balsamic vinegar. Dessert will be those Christmas cookies again, and some pound cake.

We’re looking to make some homemade eggnog this year, too, although where it fits in to all this I’m not sure. One thing I can tell you is that it’ll be good.