Christmas Eve:
Starters:
French bread + assorted spreads, platter with olives, veggies, etc. Vol-au-vents filled with mushroom ragout. This is a very old fashioned dish but I have always loved them and brings back memories of long deceased relatives.
Main course: roast chicken
Dessert: ice cream.
Christmas Day breakfast: scones, assorted breads + spreads, vol-au-vents with mushroom ragout.
Christmas Day dinner: Leftovers from yesterday's starter. We stopped eating after the starter because we'd had enough.
Boxing day lunch at grandma's: probably a light soup, maybe vol-au-vents, assorted breads + spreads, salad, cake and ice cream for dessert
Boxing day dinner: if we still feel like eating, leftovers from Christmas Eve main course. Otherwise, we'll eat that tomorrow. After that the chicken's carcass will be used for soup.
We've both been ill this week and the friend we invited cancelled because of illness too, so we chose a very light and easy to prepare menu. I think we spent half an hour in the kitchen making the mushroom ragout, preparing the chicken and making some of the spreads. Lunch at grandma's today will be fun, seeing all my cousins that I don't see too often, but my appetite hasn't really recovered from my illness yet and I already know all my relatives will be very pushy with the food. You are expected to absolutely stuff your face because they always buy way too much food and will blame us for being "left with all that good food that's going to waste now". As a compromise, I usually offer to take leftovers home instead of eating all that food right away.