I'm interested in hearing what ideas you might have for the holidays this year? I realize It's early days, but I'm a planner at heart and I love being ahead of the game. Anything you've noticed that went down well with your crowd during past Christmases? I'm yearning for ideas!

I find that festive meals at my house - whether big, like Christmas or Thanksgiving, or little, like having friends over for dinner - are basically meat, veg, and starch, with dessert of some sort, and appetizers. There are tons of low carb appetizer recipes floating arond the web. Meat and veg are no brainers. The starch can be avoided - at this point for me it is easy; someone else might have to work harder at that part. It can also be substituted. Cauliflower seems to go over pretty well. And there are a nmber of low carb dessert recipes out there as well. I am not super fond of dessert in any case, so I usually make what the others want, and don't eat any myself. My husband doesn't eat cheese, so I have got used to re-working recipes and meal plans over these many years.
This year's Christmas dinner will be appetizers [cheese, pate, crudites, crackers for the others - I might finally try my hand at some LC crackers - and my Korean sister in law makes some lovely nibbles, some of which I can eat]. Roast beef, some sort of veg [depends on what looks good at the market], maybe two. Roast potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding [this last will be a temptation for me; I may have a small piece] Dessert will be ginger cheesecake, not LC but not difficult for me to avoid - as long as there is enough roast beef left over! It could probably be made LC without too much trouble, but not worth the effort as I am the only one who cares, and I won't have a problem not eating any.

I'm not cooking this year (we are going to various relatives), but here is a round up of the big hits from years past:

appetizers:
1. cucumber rounds with cream cheese and smoked salmon- can have optional capers, lemon, onion.......
I love this because it is so light!
Pair with champagne

2. Spinach or broccoli stuffed mushrooms
just light ly steam one package florets or 2 (small) packages of fresh spinach. whiz with 8oz creamcheese, garlic, salt, and pepper. then on bking sheet, hve mushrooms with stems removed (save them for a soup or omelet!), and mushrooms lighty salted. spoon in veggy/cheese mixture. bake at 350 for aout 20-30 minutes until just starting to brown.
these go like wild fire!

3. bacon wrapped scallops
also, this sounds crazy, but it's fun! bacon wrapped strawberries, once you hit that carb rung.
i like to put just 2-3 on a greens/ goat cheese salad, to save carbs and spread these ut.

dinner:
1. crabcakes are our favorite!
2. you can always do turkey or ham.....

sides:
1. green salad with roasted veggies (brussels, bells, and onions are our favorite) with goat cheese, and a champagne or apple cider vinaigerette
2. mashed cauli "fauxtatoes"
3. roasted brussels
4. the best broccoli of your life http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=423611
5. a light pumpkin bisque

dessert:
1. i like a simple cheese plate with berries and champagne
2. cheesecake is always a hit- there are loads of recipes on this forum
3. one time i made chocolate dipped bacon- it was amazing, but i think too heavy after a holiday meal (i used 85% chocolate, so carb count was pretty low)