Cooking the Christmas Dinner Trimmings

Christmas dinner is not complete without the trimmings and those trimmings are often very personal and reflect back to the Christmas trimmings you had as a kid. If you are inviting guests to the big day whose background you don't know then it may not go amiss to just ask them if there are a few Christmas dinners trimmings they see as "essential" to make the day, if the answers are obscure ask them to bring the ingredients, all guests want to provide something anyway. I think there are some obvious ones which we'd all agree to:

Roast Potatoes!
Some green vegetables (Brussels at least!)
Roast winter root vegetables (Parsnip and carrot)
Gravy

Then there's a few traditional things like

Cranberry sauce
Bread Sauce

And of course the pork accomapniments:

Streaky bacon rolls
Chipolatas
Pork stuffing (with sage, or chestnuts or whatever you prefer

And your own favourites, in our household we always have:

Roasted baby onions
Roasted Mushrooms
Dijon mustard

And finally your own individual quirks - I love to have one big fat roated Jalapeno pepper with my roast dinner!
And I'm sure you have yours too! An old friend of mine had brown sauce with his Christmas dinner. not my idea of a great complement but hey it's everybody's day and let them have as they wish!

Wine and drinks

Let people have what they want and have all the main options available (as with the brown sauce). However nowadays most people will go for some form of wine with the main meal. Fortunately turkey is a robust old bird and will go with white and red wine. White better with the breast and red better with the dark meat but both work. I have some favourite pairings in mind but I think you are better off going with your own favourites as turkey is really flexible and giving on this. Perhaps a glass of champagne or good cava would be the ideal accompaniment given the occasion?