What’s That Cooking on Christmas Eve?

C hristmas Eve dinner traditions vary widely among my friends. Some eat Wendy’s off of fine china, others go out for Chinese after Mass, and one even does the Italian-American Feast of the Seven Fishes. Many moons ago, my family would make sandwiches out of honey-baked ham and white bread, and devour Pringles. Why we stopped this, I’m not sure, but its replacement has been nothing short of legendary. The new dish? Mashed potato pizza.

Before you write me off as a Midwestern nutjob (though maybe you already did that over the blueberry bagels), hear my tale.

It’s Christmas Eve morning, and the house is abuzz with activity. Mom and Dad are finishing up their morning prayers and coffee, and we’ve finished distracting them. Now, the vacuum starts running, someone is assigned to dusting, and another child is washing windows. After some preliminary list-making, Mom and I head to the kitchen, ready to start prepping three separate meals and various other surprises. Christmas dinner, for the past few years, has been ribs. While these are a huge hit with everyone else, I prefer as few bones in my meat as possible and am always lobbying for honey-baked ham. Despite my protestations, I help prep the eight or so racks of ribs it will take to feed us, peeling off the tough inner membrane and sprinkling on the spice rub. After wrapping these up and sticking them in the fridge, it’s time to work on Christmas morning breakfast.

While I am, as Jack Butler was appalled to learn, not a fan of Ohio’s famous Bob Evans restaurant chain, one of my favorite holiday meals was inspired by an item from their menu: egg bowls. This simple dish is excellent for Christmas morning because of its simplicity, and its customizable nature means each person can layer elements to his or her own taste. The basic recipe is (in this order): scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, sausage gravy, and cheese. I like this combo, plus ketchup (I’m the resident condiment queen), but some of my siblings want the potatoes on the side, dislike the eggs, need sausage gravy made with almond milk and gluten-free flour, etc. My mom’s favorite part? Nearly all the components can be prepped in advance.

On Christmas Eve morning, we grate cheese, chop potatoes (which will be stored in a bowl of water in the fridge), and make sausage gravy. I’m grating quite a lot of cheese because, while some of it will go in the egg bowls and on our salad this evening, most will be needed to melt gloriously atop this season’s most controversial dish.

It’s not controversial to us, of course. As with our numerous racks of ribs, it takes maybe five pizzas to satisfy the masses gathered round the Schutte table. Mom has experimented with various homemade crusts over the years, and I believe she hit on a winner with Papa John’s recipe. And in an additional labor of love, she makes a few gluten-free crusts, too.

So what exactly is mashed potato pizza? Exactly what it sounds like. Creamy mashed potatoes — made from Yukon Gold spuds and full of milk, butter, and pepper — are layered atop a crispy crust. Each pie is then sprinkled liberally with cheese (cheddar is the most popular, but we have a few colby-jack die-hards) and bacon bits. Also, for those of us with more cultivated tastes, a small subset of pizza real estate is covered with caramelized onions and fried mushrooms. The crusts are baked first, then all the toppings added, and then everything goes back in the oven to melt the cheese.

This filling dish is really all you need for a meal, but to make ourselves feel slightly healthier, we serve a large salad on the side, complete with all the best toppings: peas, tomatoes, bacon, hard-boiled eggs, and, of course, more cheese. While I’m an unashamed ranch fiend, my mom recently started making a fabulous balsamic dressing that even my youngest brother adores, and it will probably grace our Christmas Eve table on Tuesday. Oh, and to top it all off, the pizza is served with healthy dollops of sour cream. Does life get much better?

The floors have been washed, the bathrooms are sparkling, and our final Christmas décor is settled. We’ll save the fancy china for Christmas Day, but tonight is still festive in its own way. A tablecloth is laid out, candles are placed in the center, and we wait for the coming of evening. After all the day’s work, after Advent’s four weeks of preparation, we sit down with eager hearts and stomachs to this treasured meal.

After putting all the food on the table, we light the candles and the wall lamp and turn out all other lights. In this soft glow, though we aren’t necessarily less boisterous, there is a certain coziness and feeling of anticipation in the air. We pray, laugh, and share stories as we dig into the delicious food. Even when we’re stuffed to the gills, we’ll still linger around that candle-lit table sighing with pleasure. Soon, we’ll prepare for midnight Mass, welcoming the day of Christ’s birth with this most holy sacrament. And tomorrow? Well, there might be some leftover mashed potato pizza for lunch.

If your brother didn’t get to it first.