When it comes to holiday traditions, most people hold strong opinions. Maybe you grew up with clear lights on your Christmas tree and think colored lights look a little tacky. Or you might think a fruitcake is an essential and delicious part of the holidays but your friends think it’s better suited as a doorstop.
These are some common “battles” that come up often over the holidays. Where do you stand on the big issues?
Fruitcake: Yes or no?
Fruitcake is definitely a polarizing holiday tradition. Georgia’s own Claxton Bakery is well known for selling loads of their fruitcakes every year, adding over 100 seasonal employees to its regular staff to handle the rush every year. But for many people, fruitcake gets a vigorous thumbs down.
Southern Supreme Fruitcake & More, a North Carolina-based company, acknowledges the anti-fruitcake sentiment by stating on their website that because of the stigma of the word fruitcake, they had trouble getting people to try their product at a Raleigh Christmas show. Like Claxton, they must have their fans, because they’ve grown into a large company with a 40,000 square foot facility.
Clear vs. multicolored Christmas tree lights
The topic of whether to use clear or multicolored Christmas tree lights is often a topic of great contention. Both choices have their pros and cons, as Southern Living points out. White lights create a unified, sophisticated look that lets ornaments become the focus, while multicolored lights are festive, vibrant and fun.
To no one’s surprise, Martha Stewart prefers white lights. But according to a survey cited by the Chicago Tribune, 62 percent of the 1,000 respondents preferred multicolored lights with 38 percent favoring white lights.
If you and your family disagree on which is best, Southern Living suggests alternating between white and multicolored lights each year or, if you have multiple trees in your home, having one lighting choice for each. And for what seems like the ultimate compromise, technology comes to the rescue with light strands that will switch from white to multicolored and back again when you want them to. But this could turn out to be a back-and-forth battle similar to couples who keep changing the thermostat setting because of different preferences.
Ham vs. turkey vs beef for Christmas dinner
Is ham the best main dish for a Christmas dinner or is a turkey the better choice? What about a roast? BuzzFeed asked readers this question and got moore than 93,000 responses, 43 percent voting for turkey, 35 percent preferring ham, and 22 percent opting for prime rib.
Turkey seems like a pretty traditional choice, but some diners may still be suffering from turkey overload and all the leftovers from Thanksgiving. Maybe that’s why when Southern Living ranked their top Southern Christmas foods, it put roasted beef tenderloin in the number two spot, trailing only Christmas sugar cookies and making it the highest ranked main dish. The “humble ham” comes in at number 10, with Southern Living declaring it a delicious Christmas main dish when glazed in brown sugar and served with a biscuit or dinner roll.
Dressing or stuffing?
Is that delicious and popular side dish with spices, bread and other ingredients called dressing or stuffing? And is this determined by whether it’s cooked inside the bird?
What you call it may depend on where you’re from, according to Martha Stewart’s website. Dressing is usually the term if you’re from the South, and it doesn’t change even if it’s cooked inside the turkey. In the Northeast and parts of the Midwest, on the other hand, it’s often called stuffing, no matter how it’s cooked.
Whatever you call it, for safety reasons, the USDA recommends cooking stuffing in a casserole dish since cooking it inside the turkey increases the risk of cross-contamination. Whether it’s cooked inside or outside the turkey, the agency’s website refers to the dish as stuffing.
The author votes no on fruitcake, thinks multicolored lights are the only way to go, prefers ham for Christmas dinner and calls the side dish stuffing if it’s cooked inside the bird and dressing if it isn’t (despite being a lifelong Southerner).
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