What are you serving for this holiday meal? I am looking for menu ideas for . . . (read on)

Everything sounds great, I am hosting a Christmas Eve dinner party for friends, starting out with cheese platter, Mousse truffee, shrimp cocktail and smoked salmon with cucumber and dilled cream cheese on baguette rounds with drinks. Salad will be baby mixed greens, beets, walnuts and blue cheese in a simple vinaigrette. Dinner is roasted chicken and a baked salmon, mashed potatoes and vegetables oh, and homemade dinner rolls..No dessert really, putting out a fruit platter, some cookies and ice cream if anyone wants it. My guests are 2 with diabetes, 1 is vegetarian that eats fish, one is kosher and the other has allergies to a number of foods. For Christmas day I am on my own and will probably eat left overs.

Braised Beef Short Ribs that marinate for 3 days, gnocchi with gorgonzola, steamed green beans with a basil garclic dressing, mushrooms and for dessert Sticky Toffee Pudding. My daughter, who is staying with me for several months, handed me this menu a week ago and said "I am cooking, Mom." And I said Yeah!!!

Oh and I forgot....a huge mashed potato casserole!

Tonight (the 23rd) my 3 kids, their spouses and 5 grandkids come for pasta and gift opening..we're having mostacciolli with meat sauce and Italian sausages on the side, pasta Alfredo, a tossed antipasta salad, fruit salad for the kids, garlic bread and cookies. On Christmas day when we have a real houseful, it's beef tenderloin with jus and horseradish sauce, spiral sliced ham, a creamy seafood pasta with spinach, roasted asparagus, dilled cucumbers, fruit salad, and rolls. Dessert will be cannolis and a strawberry mousse filled torte (neither of my making) And about 5 or six easy appetizers..

Blue Cheese and Fig Savouries to start -my family is crazy about them. Ann Seranne's roast; Yorkshire pudding made with pan drippings, of course. My "Roasted Autumn Vegetables with Fresh Herbs" posted here. Lizthechef's Spinach Gratin. Brilliant Autumn Salad (roasted beets, roasted carrots, tossed in a citrus and mint dressing) also posted here. Cranberry Molasses steamed pudding, a contest finalist here in 2010, but with variations (stay tuned). A "slump" using Amanda's Nectarine Slump recipe, found in a blog post here, but using 1 pint of peaches in port and 1 pint of peaches in brandy that I put up last summer, with the syrup reduced considerably. But that last one is subject to change, as both sons love desserts involving apples and nuts, so I may do a variation on that using lightly caramelized apples. Vanilla ice cream for the slump and/or the pudding, though I'm making the sauce for the pudding, too. ;o) P.S. Breakfast on Christmas morning will be either Monkey (Ginger)Bread or my Pear Filled Cowboy Coffee Cake . . . whatever the boys want!!

No vegans here---traditional Christmas dinner for us---rib roast, mashed potatoes, Ina Garten's spinach gratin , blanced haricot verts with shaved parmig cheese. Peter Luger steak sauce and Ina's gorgonzola sauce !! Merry Christmas!!!

(http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/145993-The-Barefoot-Contessa-s-Spinach-Gratin)
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/gorgonzola-sauce-recipe/index.html

My husband and I celebrate Christmas Eve together and then have a big ham dinner with his parents the next day.

On Christmas Eve, this will be our first la Vigilia together. So we'll have mussels (using a Dorie Greenspan recipe), lobster, frito misto (sardines, squid, fresh anchovies) served with riccioli pasta in a red anchovy sauce (my grandmother's recipe).

I'll be making a from scratch green bean casserole from here:http://annies-eats.com/2011/11/21/from-scratch-green-bean-casserole/

and oyster dressing (TBD) for Christmas day with the inlaws. We also always have orange slices with black pepper and pizzelle cookies from the 24th until the 26th.

I'm making Denver omelet cups from Martha Stewart everyday food magazine for Xmas day brunch. Steel cut oaks with fixin's are good one too.

We're doing Chanukah (homage to fried food) with our family Monday night, so I am serving lemon chicken and latkes with a big salad--no vegetarians in our group.