This is the first year I will not be spending the holidays with my parents, brother, and sister. We had already thought it would be tricky this year with Krista starting a new job and my job not having a set number of vacation days to use. With the pandemic we then knew for certain it wouldn’t be possible, the idea of flying right now terrifies me a bit. Since I am now responsible for a majority of our holiday meal I thought I would share the things I need to have every year. I will have one recipe linked for those who are interested.

When I learned that I would be making Christmas dinner in New York the first two things that came to mind were stuffing and cranberry chutney. Every Christmas I make stuffing, which my mom also calls dressing because it doesn’t get stuffed into anything. This delicious side is literally white bread, broth, celery, onion, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper. That’s really it and this bready goodness is my absolute favorite thing to eat. You can find some standard stuffing recipes online so I don’t think mine is necessary to share, but I will share the next recipe.

For years I have made cranberry chutney on Christmas Eve. It has to be made the night before you plan to eat it because it needs to chill. Now if you are experiencing a blizzard you can make it the day of, but you will need to literally put it in the snow to chill. I know it works because we had to do that one year. The chutney is a family recipe, but we didn’t invent it. My mother’s mom, my grandma, found the recipe in a newspaper and sent it to us. I have drafted this recipe into an article on my old blog so I have linked that here for those who are interested. It is cranberry, pineapple, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and sugar. It is very easy and delicious.

The next three are pretty standard for I think a lot of of people so I thought I would do a quick share. I am making mashed potatoes from scratch, which I only do on Christmas, and also putting yams in the oven. In Ohio we sometimes do baked sweet potatoes, but Krista really likes yams and she also requested we do a batch with marshmallows so I am going to pop some in the oven with a marshmallow topping. The third element that has to happen is crescent rolls. You can’t have this meal without a side of bread so we will be putting some crescents in the oven.

The final thing is a dessert and I make these every year. They are a very easy peanut butter and chocolate cookie, which according to the book I use, are called peanut butter blossoms. I use the Bisquick very and not the version on the Hershey’s kiss wrapper, I promise the version I use tastes better. They are quick and easy and only include like 4 ingredients. If you search peanut butter blossoms or peanut butter cookies it should show up.

Let me know if there are any favorites that you always have to have around the holidays!