My family is rather traditional when it comes to holiday dinners. We usually have turkey, bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, squash, turnip, and cranberry sauce for dinner, and then a giant table filled with cookies, pies, brownies, nuts, and cheeses for later. This year we're trying to do things a little bit differently. We're still doing turkey, but we're mixing in some pasta dishes, chicken dishes, and meatballs as well, along with some different vegetables. This doesn't include what my sister is serving tonight at her annual Christmas Eve party.

What are you making for Christmas this year? Do you have a menu you follow every year? Are you doing anything differently this year?

I always have the best plans around the holidays when it comes to food. I always have some mathmatical formula where I'm going to consume the least amount of calories possible. If I don't have any cookies, I can drink more. If I don't have any of my sister's brownies, I can have a third helping of stuffing.

It never works out though. I go back for seconds at my sister's house (ham, lasagna, chicken breasts, green bean casserole, various desserts), then have a turkey sandwich and stuffing later that night at home. I go to my other sister's Xmas Eve party and find myself eating pasta salad and grazing on tortilla chips, cheese, and trifle all night (and six beers - "light," but still). Then, on Xmas Day, another meal, this one consisting of turkey, oatmeal and sausage stuffing, yams with marshmallow topping, a bottle of wine, Oreo Cookie cake and cheesecake.

What did you have to eat the past few days?

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• A quick guide to the many cookbooks released in 2006.
• How to pick the best knives for your kitchen needs.
• The history of Vanilla Caramels.
• Make some mac 'n cheese, but with a twist.
• The Globe taste tests several light microwave popcorn brands.
• This week's recipes: Onion Jam on Toast; Potato Gratin; Hazelnut Macaroon Domes; Chocolate-Dipped Coconut Sticks; and the Lavender Splash.

• Nostalgic foods you can make for the holidays, including Potato Latkes and Spicy Popcorn.
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• A recipe for the intriguing Black Cake.
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• Massachusetts Governor-elect Deval Patrick is also a gourmet cook. (Also check out some of his favorite recipes.)
• A new book coming out says that the next big trend is "gastroporn." Um, hasn't that been going on for a few years now?
• Um...wow.
• This week's recipes: Mincemeat, Frangipani mince tartlet, and Chocolate Caramel Turtles.

My family cooks turkey every holiday. Whether it's Christmas, Thanksgiving, Arbor Day, or the day we celebrate the birth of veteran stage and screen actor Mickey Rooney, turkey seems to be what we cook. Everyone loves it, so why not? But there are times I think of doing something different, like cook a ham. This recipe after the jump seems like a great place to start. Just the mention of the maple syrup and mustard and the apples all cooking together in the roasting pan makes my mouth water. And it seems really easy too.

Picture the scene: it's Christmas Day, and you're making holiday dinner for your family. You have your turkey and your stuffing and your apple pie and your egg nog, and the gifts have all been opened and everything is just hunky-dory. Then Aunt Sally comes in with the side dish she made, puts it on the table, announces what it is, and freaks out all the kids.

Reindeer meatballs!

That's what they serve at Northern Delicacies, a takeout restaurant and grocery store in Brooklyn. They also sell fish balls and salty licorice.

My advice? Don't serve them on Christmas Day. Or, if you are going to serve them, do it before Christmas Eve, so the kids won't think you did something to Santa's reindeer after they dropped off the gifts that night.

My husband's origins are Swedish (wayyyy back) so a few years ago we decided to start having Swedish-flavored Christmas celebrations. As it turns out, the Swedes like their pork, and what could be better than a holiday ham? Specifically, "Monte's Ham," a recipe I found years ago in Saveur, is the pride and joy of my Christmas dinner.

With so many different meaty delights to choose from - turkeys, rib roasts, racks of lamb, and roast duck, oh my! - what do you choose to feature on your holiday table, and how? Or do you forego the large roast meats for a nice wild mushroom risotto?

sarah's swedish ham a la monte
Start at least four hours ahead of your dinner. Go to the market and find a smoked ham on the bone - the kind that still needs more cooking. Check to make sure the label doesn't say "fully cooked" or "just heat and serve." Get a big one, 10 to 20 pounds. You'll only need two other ingredients: a large jar of good dijon mustard and a large jar of marmalade. I like organic peach/orange or apricot versions as they're free of high fructose corn syrup and other nasty stuff, but just pick whatever sounds good to you.

According to a few recent studies in the U.K., fewer and fewer households own or use dining tables for family meals. Roughly one third of the 1,000 people surveyed by vegetarian food and book purveyor Cranks said that their dining tables were used only for holiday meals such as Christmas dinner. The Cranks survey also found that nearly a quarter of households don't even have a dining table. Sales of dining room furniture have dropped eight percent in the last five years, according to study by market research group Mintel. In the same time period, sales of bedroom and home office furniture have both increased by roughly 40 percent.

Many attribute this shift from eating at the table to factors such as higher divorce rates, smaller apartments and fast-paced, job-oriented schedules that require meals to be eaten on the move.

The Daily Times has more, as does News24.