What does a typical American Christmas meal consist of? please see details.?

Question

I am originaly from Canada, from a French family. I now live in the US, and will be hosting the Christmas dinner. My in-laws (Americans) are coming, and I am not sure what I should cook, other than a stuffed turkey.
Also, how big of a turkey do I need for 7 people? Thanks!

Answer 1

Typically Christmas dinner is the same as Thanksgiving. Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing/dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans or scallopped corn, candied sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie.

I've never cooked a turkey so I can't suggest how much you need. But it does make for good leftovers that you can be creative with.

Answer 2

Cook a canadian Christmas Dinner and I bet you'll find that It's exactly the same as an American one and if it wasn't then you could start your own tradition of cooking it Canadian style each time it was your turn.

I live in Canada and a typical Christmas dinner in my family is the exact same thing we eat at Thanksgiving. Roast Turkey and Roast Beef or Roast Pork (my mom cooks two meats), Stuffing (we don't stuff the turkey because if you do that, then you can't make gravy), Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Coleslaw, Homemade Rolls, Cranberry Jelly, Squash, Peas & Carrots, Pumpkin Pie, Mince Meat Pie, Nanaimo Bars, Date Squares, Chocolate Cupcakes with Red or Green Frosting, Cookies, Graham Wafer Squares, Cheesecake, Rainbow Squares, Lemon Squares, I could go on an on about how many sweets we have.... About 11-15 people typically join us for Christmas dinner and a 20 lb turkey does the job.

Answer 3

I'd think a 15 lb turkey would be big enough, but check the package for number of servings. Until the last few years, I fixed about 50 turkey dinners for from 6 to 26 people! Most every year we do it southern style: everyone brings their special dish, but generally we always had cornbread dressing (cooked in a separate baking dish), cranberry sauce (canned or from scratch!), potato casserole (the recipe is on the frozen hash brown potato bag). Green beans or those tiny green peas (sometimes both!) Turkey gravy, of course!
Ambrosia Salad (all kinds of fruit, mixed with whipped cream or dream whip). Tossed green salad.... and several desserts: Pumpkin pie, pecan pie and apple pie.

(Oh dear! I've given away the great American secret.....we eat too much, especially on holidays) Now what have I forgotten? Oh yes! Mama's home made cloverleaf rolls....you can use those from the frozen food case. they are excellent with a pat of REAL butter! Might as well splurge.....this whole meal is a splurge! After all, we're REALLY thankful to be together, to be well and safe in our homes, and to have plenty to eat....unlike so many others in our world.

Answer 4

My family is gigantic, and so we have massive quantities of food. You needn't make everything I'm going to list for you!
We typically have a turkey and a ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoe casserole, dressing (we don't stuff the turkey, so the dressing is made alongside it) mac &cheese casserole, green beans, noodles cooked in broth with peas and pearl onions. Sometimes we also have a spinach and artichoke casserole, and cranberry jelly for the turkey.

Wow, that looks like a lot all typed out--and that's not including dessert! Really, though, as long as you have the turkey and dressing, some form of potato, some sort of green vegetable, and a bread of some kind you'll be fine. Everything else is gravy (oh! don't forget the gravy! :D).

For whole, bone-in turkey, you get about 1.5 servings per 1 pound of turkey. Happy (very very early) Christmas!

Answer 5

Generally speaking, you can consider it something of a Thanksgiving clone. There's really nothing specific beyond potatos, stuffing, and turkey, though most often my family has served Ham. Sweet potatos are common as well. A Christmas themed dessert can help, but something simple as pie or cake works too (again, personal experience, I'm sure someone else'll correct me on this.) So long as the food is good, however, you should be fine.

As to how big a turkey you need, well... if you have ample side dishes, it won't have to be massive. Always, ALWAYS expect to have leftovers from a Christmas meal.

Answer 6

Our traditional family Christmas's consisted of a Big Turkey, Ham, mashed potatoes, Sweet potatoes, corn, peas, some sort of mixed casserole thing ( don't really know what it was but it was tasty), stuffing, cranberries, cranberry sauce, gravy(both turkey and ham), that orange jello with the marshmallows, green bean casserole, and various other German dishes depending on what we had the previous year.

Answer 7

i have a large family and cook about 15 pounds of turkey with mashed potatoes cranberry sauce gravy (filtered pan gravy with roux) a roux is a 2:1 flour oil mixture cooked on low heat for 20 30 minutes stuffing from a pan bread and butter but i saw i cant believe its not butter or some cultured sea salt butter straight from Vermont
for dessert simple chocolate cream pie butterscotch pie cheesecake any kind will do mince meat pie and apple pie and cake and brownies

Answer 8

Hohoho :)
Depends where you live in the US.
In the US for Christmas dinner there is turkey, stuffing, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. In the south they may have grits and whiskey cake and Hawaii has turkey teriyaki for Christmas dinner.

Don't hesitate to cook some traditional canadian food as it will sure be delicious.

Joyeux Noël :)

http://www.christmasgifts.net/Christmasblog/2006/08/09/the-christmas-dinner/

Answer 9

Traditionally I think it's goose. But in my family it was always turkey (NOT MORE TURKEY!) or ham.

I don't like either though so I just eat the other stuff-mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, salad, stuffing -what ever else there is.

My husband's family's tradition has always been Salmon.

Answer 10

We always had duck for Christmas. The rest of the "fixins" were Thanksgivingish. Stuffing, peas, fresh bread, cranberry sauce, squash, apple pie, and whatever potluck the family brought with them.