My Favorite Christmas Desserts that have become Tradition

Christmas is the time to make memories and every family captures the moment differently. I was deeply touched today to read something a friend posted on facebook. This is part of what she wrote.

Reminded why I do love Christmas. The only decorations in and on our house are on our real Christmas Tree. Every year we purchase an ornament to remind us of that year with our five children. Yes, even the baby that God got too early gets an ornament. We are so blessed because our tree is all sorts of glorious colors just like my life with my husband and our babies. Thank you Jesus for allowing us to celebrate you.

I thought about what she wrote all day. What a glorious way to celebrate the true spirit of Christmas. She is not only using a tradition to tell the story. She is using it to write the story.

My husband and I have a few traditions.  We never open any gifts until Christmas morning. We are both so dramatic about this, that we have to set up the scene downstairs first. The cappuccino has to be made and the table set for some super luxurious breakfast like Crepes Suzette which is planned again for this year.  He puts on Christmas music,  lights the fire place and then the fun begins. I know I’m going to have a pile of gifts and one of them will be flannel pajamas. This is so much a part of the gifting that if he didn’t get me the jammies, I would cry. They’ve become more important than the big gift, because it’s part of our tradition as a couple and it represents something about us and how we love each other. Christmas is the time that love gets magnified.

Part of what I bring to the Christmas scene that he can count on is the kitchen baking and the ice cream making.  We make a Christmas ice cream every year to eat with cookies on Christmas Eve.  I haven’t come up with this year’s flavor yet, but I’m getting ideas. Please let me know if you have good suggestions.  In the meantime, enjoy some of our sweet traditions.

Salty Gingerbread Cookie Ice Cream  The Gingerbread found their way into an ice cream that became the most favorite ice cream ever made according to my husband with the possible exception of the peppermint ice cream.

Peppermint Ice Cream. If anyone remembers Howard Johnson’s Peppermint, this tastes just like it. By some miracle, I hit this recipe just right on the first try.

Christmas Fudge.  People wait every year to get this fudge because it’s only made at Christmas as a promise to the person who showed me how to make it. My friend’s mother had passed away she was a teenager and she got the recipe from her. I estimate that I’ve made probably 250 pounds of this fudge over the years.

Gingerbread Men. I have to make these so we can make the ice cream. The twins are part of this memory as we attempted to make this little guy a house. Not as easy as it looks.

Favorite Christmas Cookie. The Pecan Tassie. This was my first blog post and  I can’t go a Christmas without making them. I have our neighbor’s hand written recipe to this day. When my brother and I were teenagers, she showed us how to make them one Saturday night. Up until then, no one had ever baked with us, so you could probably say that night was life changing.

Pomegranate Sorbet.  A sorbet is a great palate cleanser or that something just a little sweet to end a meal. We also like this in cocktail glasses with a little champagne added as a dessert cocktail. If you go to this post, you’ll understand it’s significance.

Almond Tart. This was legendary at Chez Panisse for over twenty years. I make it so frequently that I have the recipe memorized.

The Christmas Ice Cream Bombe. The ice cream bombe is still our Christmas Day tradition and we  often serve it with a chocolate sauce.

I would love to hear about your holiday traditions. Feel free to leave a link to your favorite Christmas food tradition.