We're highlighting clever tips and tricks for pulling off any holiday get-together without breaking a sweat. It's Your Party, after all, so you might as well enjoy it!
For most of my life, a “small” holiday celebration meant sixish people. But rewind to Christmas Eve last year and we weren’t six—or five or even four or three. We were two. Me, my husband, and an eight-pound spiral ham.
At the time, Justin and I lived in North Carolina. We had been there for almost four years for his Ph.D program, hundreds of miles from our families in the Northeast. Most holidays, we found a way to reunite with everyone, but last year was complicated, and our big holiday plans ended up being: go nowhere, see no one.
This could have been sad. How do you even make a Christmas Eve feast for two people? Go to a restaurant? Buy a few slices of ham at the deli counter? Is it even worth it? After lots of mulling over mulled wine, we realized the answer: You don’t make a Christmas Eve feast for two people. You make a Christmas Eve feast, period. And two people just happen to attend.
Justin loves spiral ham because he grew up celebrating Christmas and that was his family’s meat of choice. I love spiral ham because I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas and a giant pork centerpiece just sounded so, well, cool.
Unlike a roasted turkey or chicken, roasted ham is next to no work. Just brush with glaze, stick in the oven, and, soon enough, carry a glossy, lacquered, bacon-scented masterpiece to the table. A lot of glaze recipes are part spicy, part sweet, and mine is no different. I stole it from my family’s recipe for glazed, scored, and baked Hebrew National salami (better than it sounds). All you do is combine equal parts Dijon mustard and apricot jam.
Of course, there’s some irony here—taking a kosher dish and adapting it to a ham. But this, too, feels true to my family. While my mom is Jewish, my dad is not, and we were just as likely to have matzo brei for breakfast as we were to serve Taylor ham alongside. One of my favorite parts about traditions is watering them, so they can grow and change, just like us.
Unlike any other holiday of my life, Justin and I shopped the day before, and started cooking the day of. Bagna cauda and crudités, cheese and crackers, lots of wine to start. We painted the ham sloppily—getting glaze all over fingers and making sure none went to waste—carved it unneatly, and ate more than is appropriate while standing over the carving board. We served it with heavily-buttered bread, plus a fried chestnut and frisee salad. We stayed at the table forever. Pear crisp and all the heavy cream for dessert. There was Christmas music playing in the background. And we wore our pajamas the entire day.
Now, if you’re thinking, An eight-pound ham for two people! How wasteful! well, let me stop you there. Because not a bite of that ham was wasted. We ate the whole dang thing that night.
No, I’m just kidding. We ate a lil’ more than we should have (it’s a holiday after all!) and still had many, many pounds of leftovers. Then we individually portioned those, stuck ’em in the freezer, and reaped the rewards for months: grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, ham fried rice, ham and pineapple pizza, ham-salad sandwiches, ham carbonara.
This year, we’re doing the same thing for Christmas Eve. I don’t know what the full menu is yet, but I know it’ll be just us and a crowd-sized ham. Call it a new tradition.
| 1 | (8-pound) bone-in, spiral-sliced, unglazed ham |
| 3/4 | cup Dijon mustard |
| 3/4 | cup apricot jam |
| 1 | (8-pound) bone-in, spiral-sliced, unglazed ham |
| 3/4 | cup Dijon mustard |
| 3/4 | cup apricot jam |
What are some of your favorite holiday traditions? Please share in the comments!
Written by: Emma Laperruque
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17 Comments
Also, Honey Baked Ham sells a small, bone in, spiral sliced ham they call a mini ham. It's about 4 lbs. It's a trade off, though. Because for what that mini ham costs ($40 ish) you could buy a huge, decent ham from a supermarket.
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