Christmas is coming and I need to make some plans about what to serve for Christmas Eve dinner.  Husband’s sister and her family are coming here for dinner - they’re omnivores but very open to vegan food, so it should be a great night.  My problem is this: I need to think of something special to make for dinner.  Wouldn’t you be disappointed with a holiday dinner comprised of brown rice and stir fry?  Yeah.  It doesn’t cut it.  Dinner needs to be festive!

So I’m combing my recipe books for suitably dramatic and time consuming dishes to serve.  I’ll have some basics on hand: mashed potatoes, fresh dinner rolls, and a brussels sprouts/cauliflower/broccoli in garlic mustard sauce dish I like, but beyond this I’m undecided.  I’ll serve a soup (probably a chickpea stew I make that uses all the traditional poultry spices and tastes like turkey), a salad (likely just a simple green fellow), and then I’ll need another vegetable dish - perhaps a tart?  The chief challenge is thinking up the turkey replacement, or rather the star of the meal.  I’m thinking something baked that I can whip out of the “oven” at the last moment to great applause and gasps of air.  Naturally it needs to be not too fussy about oven temperature and small enough to fit in my oven!  I found a recipe for a seitan roulade with mushroom and chestnut filling that I might try later this week to see if it will do.  It looks lovely!

Last year I really overdosed on Christmas.  This year I have sworn I will not put up the tree or any decorations until the first weekend of December (the 7th I believe), and so far have only been cheating a little.  There are about 8 ornaments on my fireplace mantel which comprise my purchases for this year.  And I ordered some CD’s online of Christmas music I enjoy: a version of the Nutcracker ballet, one of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir discs, the Festival of Carols in Brass, and - wait for it - the Christmas album by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.  (All I can say about this latter is your musical tastes should be guided by what you love and not what others will think is cool.)  This year I’m going for a more concentrated blast of Christmas, confined to the month between early December and the week after New Year’s.  To avoid oversaturation, you understand.

But what to serve for dinner?