Christmas dinner, starter or no starter?

[Gemini]

OH and I were discussing this topic over our Boxing Day lunch. We had avocado and prawn cocktail starter which we both love.
We always have a small starter with Christmas Dinner, be it on December 25th or 26th. Neither of us had Christmas starters growing up.
Did you?

[Daisy]

When I do Christmas dinner at home (which is most years), I do a starter, main course and pudding. OH and I both love Christmas pudding, and we always flambe it, which the GCs love!

I don't think I'd even heard of 'starters' when I was a child. I usually do something small, like parma ham with melon and a small salad, or something fishy such as smoked salmon, or prawn cocktail.

[Shemadee]

When the family are with us we have all our favourite starters in the evening rather than before our Christmas dinner. It’s supposed to be about 1,30 but usually an hour or so later.

[Daisy]

Shem - what a good idea. I totally misjudged things this Christmas Day. We had our prawn cocktail starter late morning, because DS1 really needs to eat little and often. It was in a huge bowl, and I was struggling to finish it, but had totally forgotten DIL had given us huge slices of bara brith with coffee a bit earlier! When we got to the main course a couple of hours later I was still too full to have more than a token turkey dinner, and even that was too much.

[Plantaholic]

We had blinis with sour cream, smoked salmon and caviar (well lump fish) during the morning.

[Glammanana]

I have always enjoyed Smoked Salmon stuffed with cream cheese for starters or a soup if DGCs turned up their nose at salmon.
This year however it was hilarious,as you all know veg was at a premium in some places so I bought 2 x cauliflowers from my local greengrocer just in case they where unavailable from TESCO'S with my xmas order my order arrived with said 2 cauliflowers and my eldest son who works for Sainsburys turned up with another 2 cauliflowers so in total I had 6 .I had to rethink the starters and made cauliflower and blue cheese soup and still have one left in the fridge now

[WeeGranny]

I really can't remember having a special meal at Christmas as a small child. We always had it on New Year's Day. My Dad, as with most men, worked Christmas Day, so there was day off for them until New Year.
I also recall, when I met OH and came to London to meet him on New Year's Day, he had been working. So really, it must be fairly recently that the holidays have been introduced in Scotland and England.

[Daisy]

WeeGranny - I can well remember New Year's Day in England being a normal working day. When we were first married and playing in a group we were always booked for NYE, and it usually went on until 2 am, then we had to pack up and drive home from wherever. I started work at 8 am and most years it wasn't really worth going to bed! I can't even begin to imagine doing that now!

Another Scottish friend of mine says they didn't really celebrate Christmas Day - just Hogmanay when everyone would go round to different houses having a wee dram with them and first footing.