Pizza for Christmas

Every year my family tends to celebrate Christmas not on the 25th, but on a random day like the 19th at 6pm.  My mom, dad and both my brothers live here in Chicago and it just makes more sense to get the gift giving out of the way ahead of time before we all fly to Atlanta to spend the holidays with the rest of the extended family.  We don't see a point in bringing all of our gifts to the South to unwrap them, only to have to bring them right back to Chicago.

^{This year, like I said - we are having Christmas on a Wednesday night; and this year we are celebrating at my new home.  For weeks now my mom has been wondering what we are going to have for our "Christmas dinner" and sincerely wanted to have someone cater the meal.  Being that I work in the catering business and this is the busiest time of year for us, the last thing on my mind is decieding what to have for dinner!  As long as I don't have to cook it - I don't care.} 

^{Hence - pizza for dinner.  Order out, easy cleanup, minimal leftovers.  This idea didn't go over to well with mom!} 

^{The holiday meal traditions in my family have always been a little weird.  For Thanksgiving this year, we ate at Smith and Wollensky.  Not exactly what people expect to hear, considering there are two chefs in the family (my brother works for Charlie Trotters catering company, Trotters to Go. I wish I could say that we had a wonderful experience, however – we did not.  Service was horrible, and the kitchen had run out of good deal of their Thanksgiving food.  I ordered the turkey dinner and it was so horribly oversalted that I couldn’t even eat it.}

^{Every holiday we celebrate there is always shrimp cocktail involved because my dad loves the stuff.  If we are cooking at home, my brothers are always in the kitchen making something or other; creating quite the clustermuck for the rest of us.  It’s our family tradition.  Getting in each others way.}

^{But I wouldn’t change a second of it.}

^{This year, my youngest brother has volunteered to make meatloaf.  His meatloaf is killer.  For many years we always made hamloaf – a recipe passed down from my grandmother.  But I guess tastes change because a few of us don’t really want hamloaf anymore.  I know it doesn’t sound appetizing, but I find it delicious!}

^{So we’ve got meatloaf, and Mom and Dad are bringing dessert that they are really excited about.  I have no idea what it is, and didn’t ask.  Again – I don’t have to make it, so I don’t care.  I’m sure it will be lovely.  I guess then, I’ll be doing veggies and side dishes which I am actually excited about.  My favorite? Roasted brussel sprouts with pancetta.  Maybe I’ll through in some goat cheese mashed potatoes too.}

^{I guess my point to all of this is, it doesn’t matter what you eat for dinner.  If pizza makes you happy, order up that pie.  What’s really more important is spending the holidays with your family and realizing that just because you have a chef (or two) in the family doesn’t mean it has to become a scene from Gourmet magazine.}