We relive a memory from my wife's childhood going to her great grandmother's house for a Christmas eve dinner. That was in New York. We transplanted the tradition to Portland and subject it upon a circle of friends and their children.
The dinner is seven courses if you include the host with honey as a course. Its all vegetable as one on a farm might have in winter.
Its our tradition now. We've added pot-luck appetizers, platters of Christmas cookies, and London Fog.
My grown son sat next to me at the second table. He passed on the mushroom soup admitting that he never liked it. I pointed out that nobody actually likes much of the food but they keep coming back because they like the idea of tradition.