Christmas Day - the women cooked - Turkey or Ham with all the trimmings....

But - Christmas Eve - the men cooked - often chili and tamales.... Unlike
on Christmas Day the food was out for self serve for 4 to 6 hours and we
just grabbed it informally with paper plates so the ladies had a break...



I remember going to town with my grandfather to buy the tamales from some locals
that made them in their own family recipes those old fashioned hand rolled corn husked
tamales where you could actually find the meat - then we would stir up a big batch of
prime beef cuts into a pot of chili with hand cut bits of a roast and most times a touch
of pork and venison too.... Laying out all the pico guacamole lettuce tomatoe and other
trimmings so that anyone could grab a bowl whenever they arrived or just got hungry...
Seemed there was always a football game going even when we only had three stations - LOL
So the food was on the porch or in the den in warmers and the women had the kitchen
and dining room to gather and the men had the game in the den or just sat outside on
the porch to talk.... Also seemed us kids always had a running football game in the back
yard all day with all our cousins we had not seen in a while....

Every now and then it was chicken and sausage gumbo.....

And when we had Christmas on the farm - a bit of an early deer hunt
then home made sausage bread for breakfast...

What about ya'll --- what were your traditions ? ? ?