I'm going to be visiting family, so I'm going to be polite and eat the best of what is offered. It will be good homecooked food, which sustained me for many years. I think I can take the weekend to celebrate that tradition with my family.

On Christmas Eve breakfast will be my usual 2 pcs. of bacon and a portion of chuck steak.

After that I'm going to make ancestral eggnog (may add just a bit of honey,) ancestral brownies and bacon-covered sweet potato chunks. We'll eat the last item warm out of the oven.

I'll roast a free-range turkey and we'll eat the crispy skin and choice bits right away; the nice cuts will go in the fridge and I'll freeze the carcass for a future stew. The brownies will be our dessert.

That night, we'll hit the eggnog and some Lindt's 100% and 85% chocolate. Yum!

I never cook on Christmas; we'll eat any and all leftovers from the fridge as desired.

My plan - assuming we do not head in to see family in the city - is:

Ham - bone in, slow cooked, molasses/garlic glazed

Green Bean casserole a la` Alton Brown

Cauliflower Faux tatoes

Mashed sweet potatoes

salad

bread dip with veggies instead of bread - family recipe, super awesome

and a fruit tart / pie of some sort with nut crust for dessert - probably strawberry because I have a bunch of frozen whole strawberries

We are headed to see our extended family for Christmas. I plan on sharing pickled shrimp, brussel spout slaw, bacon wrapped dates, and homemade peppermint patties.

These recipes will not be posted until after Christmas but you can see all of my other paleo recipes on my food blog.

http://www.thewholekitchen.com/

We'll have friends over for roast turkey with stuffing, mashed carrots/turnips, maybe brussel sprouts (or other green veggies if we can't find them), cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams or sweet potatoes, stuffed pork loin and pumpkin pies for dessert.

Plus whatever other stuff turns up- we have a crew coming over for supper (not paleo, so we will eat around the excess stuff) I'm making whipped cream for the pies and eating the filling not the crust.

What's a party if you can't have fun?

Christmas seems like a very easy meal to make paleo! I can't really think of anything I need to change in my family's meal, besides passing on the stuffing.

I work on an organic farm in the summer, so we get a beautiful heritage, free-range, organic turkey that I pick up on Christmas eve, so fresh it hasn't even cooled down in the fridge yet. I roast it hard and fast to get the skin wonderfully crisp and keep it juicy. I cut off the legs at the thigh bone, wrap them in parchment, and roast them alongside the bird to allow them to finish at the same time as the breast meat is done.

We like to do roasted root vegetables (salsify, rutabaga, parsnip, carrots, turnips) in butter with fresh thyme and a touch of honey stirred in at the end. I like roasted brussel sprouts with reduced balsamic vinegar and bacon bits. I usually make roasted garlic mashed potatoes, which I pipe onto a baking sheet and bake quickly in a hot oven, make crispy-edged little "wells" to hold my mom's fabulous pan gravy (she makes it from the turkey neck, giblets, and heart). The totally-non-paleo part: cranberry sauce, made fresh with ginger and hot peppers, so amazing but packs a ton of sugar. It's basically cran-jam, but my brother's favourite part of the dinner and recipe I made up years ago! may have to have a smidgen this year...

For breakfast/appies it's easy: appies are alwasy 5-7 lbs of spot prawns my boyfriend caught the year before. We boil them quick and serve them with garlic butter, amazing and a treat for house guests. Breakfast is cold smoked salmon (lox) from my boyfriend's dad, served with fresh lemon wedges and capers. Perfect breakfast, flavourful, filling, and decadent. Totally paleo!

I'll be enjoying fellowship with family and friends eating whatever is put in front of me.

Preparing for a Christmas get-together this very evening. All are SAD eaters beside me and my husband. The menu is gluten-free and virtually bad fats-free (in the sense that there are no industrial seed oils--exception: jarred gravy). Yet I'm feeling confident everyone will be satisfied:

Spice-rubbed Roasted Pork Tenderloin

Herb-Crusted Roast Turkey Breast

Wild Rice Dressing

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Spiced Pecan Topping

Tossed Green Salad with Homemade Herb Dressing

Traditional Mashed Potatoes and gravy

Fresh-made Apple Sauce served warm

I am not providing the dessert. One of the guests is bringing one knowing we don't eat sweets. The jarred gravy, which we shall not partake, is the only store-bought, processed item.

I'll be staying at my parents place for the holidays. As kids, we used to have Cretons on Christmas morning. It's a French-Canadian pork rillette with cloves and other spices. You spread it on toasted baguette with dijon mustard. Perfection. My parents' concern with "healthy" eating in the 90s meant they gave it up, but I'm determined to bring it back this Xmas and have given dad the heads up. Seems pretty Paleo to me. I also will prepare bacon-wrapped almond-stuff dates for a pre-dinner appie.

Well I am very excited for the Christmas party I plan some thing special for my family.

Duck confit,cabbage steamed with vinegar and custard pie with almond flour crust. I'm sure there will be more dishes, but that's what I've come up with so far.

I am going to sharing Christmas stories with the world. I have many memories of Christmas, but none as strong as the Christmas I ate a bath oil ball. There I was, early Christmas morning, about 4 years old, eagerly going through my stocking. I pulled out one of those big plastic candy canes filled with what I assumed were rainbow-colored gum balls. And I quickly popped one in my mouth. Only it wasn’t a gum ball. Before my mother could stop me, I bit down and released a gush of oil that I can still taste today.

Squeezer

I don't see a reason to eat non-Paleo for Christmas dinner. There are such great Paleo alternatives to traditional foods! I've made Paleo versions of Sage Stuffing/Dressing, Mulled Cranberry Sauce, Pumpkin and Pecan Pie, Apple Crumble and more! Recipes for these are all on my blog. Give them a try and I'm sure those non-Paleo friends and family will love them as well.

Stuffing, cranberry sauce, apple crumble: http://angiessuburbanoasis.blogspot.com/2011/12/paleoprimal-christmas-recipes.html

Pumpkin and Pecan Pie: http://northwestcavegirls.com/2011/12/pumpkin-and-pecan-pie/