What's on your Christmas Dinner menu?

The Cyclist and I both have enormous families and its hard to get to every place, every year.  So when we were married, we enacted a plan: we spend Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his and then the next year, we'd swap.  Overall it works pretty good, even though there is still some running around.

This year is Christmas with The Cyclists family.  Usually this means travelling to the Bay to our "auntie's" house, but that auntie has moved and she has hung up her apron for hosting Christmas.  This means that we get to host Christmas at our house this year.  Although we will miss the family we usually see, we're looking forward to cooking too.  Since we realized we would be the hosts, I've been obsessively planning our menu on Pinterest.

So far, this is what our menu is looking like....

Appetizer
Yes, we will be a mountain of food.  An appetizer is still necessary!  Originally there was going to be 6-8 of us, but peeps are moving, working, etc., so we are down to 4.  I'm leaning towards a cheese ball for our app, but these other things look lovely too.

Source: pinlavie.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Source: marthastewart.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Source: marthastewart.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Source: anediblemosaic.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Source: adailysomething.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Source: joelens.blogspot.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Starter
We'll start with a butternut squash soup.  I've been working on my own recipe, but it's not mastered yet.

Source

The next course will be salad.  I didn't want to do a plain old salad so it will be one of these, depending on whether or not I can get blood oranges from the farmer's market...

Source: g0lubka.blogspot.pt via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Source: joythebaker.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Main
Although I do most of the cooking, The Cyclist is actually a really good cook.  He cooks when it's time to get fancy, so he's in charge of the main course, which will be lamb.  I don't know which recipe he'll be using, but I found these...

Source: bonappetit.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Source: bonappetit.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Source: bonappetit.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Sides
I'm in charge of sides, which are my favorite anyway.  I've narrowed these bad boys down as follows...

Source: foodandwine.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Source: wholefoodsmarket.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Bread
I wishfully want to make my own bread.  We'll see if I run out of time or not...

Source: blogs.babble.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Source: ahintofhoney.com via The Cyclist's on Pinterest

Dessert
The Cyclist's mom is in charge of this and she's making us chocolate eclairs!!  Can you say yum?!

So tell us, what's on your menu?  Also - come back tomorrow and check out all of the Christmas Cocktails!

♥TCW