That wicker plate of dried fruit from the produce section, tops my list. I like dried fruit, but please ... let's get some quality stuff, people. That little wicker tray of fruit with the plastic pick is hideous, old, dry, and flavorless. I don't care much for mincemeat, either. The genuine kind, or the fruity kind.

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Cranberry sauce that comes in a can, when it plops out it just looks like a gelatinous mold of nastyness. As if anyone uses cranberry sauce on meat any other time of the year... know why they don't?? Because It's gross.

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Ribbon candy. No flavor (well, sometimes anise or horehound), always gets stuck together in damp climates, and frequently served from an uncovered candy dish, so there's lint/dust. ICKY!

Note to the mincemeat haters: try the Prize Cookies recipe on the box of condensed mincemeat with two boxes of mincemeat, butter instead of shortening, and a little extra flour. Roll into balls, dredge in beaten eggwhites, bake as directed. I guarantee it will change your tune on mincemeat.

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Glad to have the intriguing mincemeat cookie recipe - What size balls, and how much do they flatten? The "little bit" of extra flour confounds me without some idea of the consistency the dough should be - soft, like chocolate chip cookie dough, or shortbread-firm?

Sweet potato casserole with marshmallows is an abomination, as is green bean casserole made with canned beans. I had turkey in France one winter, and it was served with buttery roasted carrot puree. Yum.

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I think green bean casserole is pretty foul - it is slimy. I would much rather just have plain green beans, thanks. I also find ham disgusting. Too salty. And the person who decided it was a good idea to put oysters in stuffing should be shot, brought back to life, and shot again. If it weren't for all the cookies, it would be very easy for me to avoid overeating at the holidays.

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oh oui, I agree, oysters in stuffing is awful ! and I love raw oysters but please, not in stuffing!

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For the flour, I'd say about a quarter of a cup - after chilling in the refrigerator, you should be able to roll balls made with a #40 disher (about 3/4 of a fluid ounce, or 1.5T) that hold their shape and aren't ridiculously sticky. I'd describe the dough as more firm than the Toll House recipe, but nowhere near as firm as a shortbread. It's a trifle more cohesive than a pecan sandie or mexican wedding cake/russian teacake. The cookies will hold a "domed" shape but will spread in the oven. The texture is stout and chewy, not unlike a hermit or very hearty New England raisin cookie.

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Okay, let's set the record straight on those fruitcakes. I love the fruitcakes I used to make myself. I picked every ingredient and trust me on this, not one tin can was ever used in the production of my fruitcakes.

I used the best ingredients including Hennessy bras armes cognac and black rum. Those are not cheap bathtub gin, my friends! I soaked the cakes, along witn rumballs, bourbon balls and whiskey sourballs. I kept them soaking from before Thanksgiving until Christmas. They were a delight. Never hard like those storebought bricks of nasty spoilage. Never so fruity and nutty that you could not taste the cake.

What do I find nasty about the holidays in West Texas? Homemade queso. It looks and smells like yellow vomit. It is so disgusting that people will detour around it to find the pies. Nnnnnnaaaaaasssssstttty! I just wish all these "Suzy Homemakers" would quit making that crap.

What's good for Christmas in West Texas? Tamales!! I love them and can't get enough. The mamacitas and abuelas get in the kitchen and go nuts cranking out tamales - wait for it - TO GIVE AWAY!!! Yay! Excuse me, I think Abuleita Arenivas next door has cranked up the tamale pot! Bye!

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, enjoy your Kwanzaa and just plain Happy Holidays!

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In Australia, Christmas is usually around 40 Degrees Celcius. So we usually have ham for breakfast Christmas morning, because you can serve it cold. Mum always buys these massive legs of ham, like they slaughtered a pig the size of a hippo. Christmas breakfast ham is damned good, even boxing day, but by about January 4 I'm getting real tired of ham.

On other posts, sweet potato and marshmallows? Man, that's one cultural barrier i'm happy to leave right where it is.

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Ha. I love the cranberry sauce out of the can. Perfect ridges for cutting. I also like the sweet potato casorole and the green beans.

i do agree about the ham, oyster stuffing and the ribbon candy.

Peas come out during holiday meals. I hate peas.

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the big puffy dry italian cake is called pannetone (sp?). i don't mind it, but you kinda have to treat it like bread -- toast it and butter it, perhaps.

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Actually, I think fruitcake has gotten a bad rap. If it's done well, I like it on occasion...especially when it's doused with bourbon.

I can't think of any "traditional" holiday foods that I truly can't stand (in moderation). My family has sort of evolved as it has expanded, and now Christmas Dinner consists of assorted seafoods, baked ham (yeah, yeah, I know, it's technically roasted), wild turkey, and pasta (and maybe some venison chili, if the meat is available). This year, I'm thinking about adding a rib roast to the mix.

One suggestion, regarding holiday gift-giving (in the form of food): we got PLENTY of sweets, thank you. Instead of giving me a basket or platter of cookies, candies, muffins or fudge, how about something a little more savory, like homemade trail mix? Last year, for the first time, I made several batches of Bacon Cookies; they're a shortbread cookie, basically, but they're more like a very rich cracker than a cookie. Once they recovered from the initial shock, my family/friends/co-workers absolutely loved them. It's a welcome change from all the sugar.

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Fruitcake is marvelous when properly made: candied FRUIT (not the cheapest candied peel), lots of nuts, plenty of cinnamon and nutmeg in the batter, and soak it mercilessly in rum (though I'll accept that other liquors will work, too). I make a fruitcake that people like enough to eat so much that they actually get a little tipsy.

I'm with John on wanting savory treats, though. The year in San Francisco that I made it my holiday goal to maximize my exposure to free samples -- easy and worthwhile if you lived downtown -- I got so tired of sweets. I was ready to beg the nice people at the big Williams Sonoma to please do crackers as a food demo.

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Amanda.....try pannetone french toast! Yummy!

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The British equivalent to green bean casserole is probably brussel sprouts, boiled whole and for too long. Green, slimy and bitter - there are very good reasons why they only get eaten once a year. I did recently discover that they are just about edible when shredded, sauteed in butter and dressed with lemon juice, though.

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There are no bad Christmas foods, only badly cooked foods. Somebody, somewhere knows how to make a superb green bean casserole. He may be trapped at the bottom of a mine on Kerguelen Island, but he can make a great green bean casserole. Even with off- brand mushroom soup.

But I agree about the ribbon candy. Also those little millefiore candies with Christmas themes that are flavored with cloves or cardamom. The anise and fruit flavored ones are okay, though. If I want to taste cloves I'll go see my Silat teacher and cadge one of his kreteks.

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Those butter cookies in the giant tins. My husband's grandmother makes a stollen that's like a brick.

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I'd blocked the memory, but you bring it back... spritz cookies. Remember those spritz cookie guns from the late 1970s? They make a very "short" cookie in a fancy shape like a tree or star, and it tastes like sweetened cardboard, and since you make millions of them, they're around forever. They're not better stale.

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Lutefisk. I've yet to find someone where I'm from who can actually cook the stuff properly. My mom loves the stuff, so we have to suffer through the smell and the fact that it's like eating fish flavored jello. At least it's only on the menu at Christmas!

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i've been eating fruitcake for years - my grandmother always makes her little pre-unveiling speech about it being made with 'the very best' ingredients, and we eat it because we love her, but it's still like trying to eat a black hole, in every way that eating a black hole would be awful and traumatizing. because who cares if it's 'the best' booze you're pouring on it, or 'the best' dried fruit you're packing into its impossibly dense interior - the bottom line is that a fruitcake has the very same texture as a clump of crushed houseflies kneaded into unsettlingly wet soil. does it matter if soil is from the Loire valley, or flies are fattened up with Kobe beef, if a dessert is made with those ingredients? i'm pretty sure that you'd still be eating dirt and bugs.

of course, the fact that fruitcake has to 'soak' is the first alarm bell. dirty dishes 'soak', not cakes. the second horribleness is the booze. not because booze is horrible - god knows it's not - but because it proves that the cake is desperate for help, that it can't stand on its own soggy two feet. you slosh anything with booze and it's at least suddenly more interesting, even if it still tastes like sugared ass.

i love just about every food there is. i just can't wrap my head around fruitcake. though i will have to wrap my mouth around it in about a week, yet again.

hooray for ancient, baffling traditions.

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