Christmas Mores - Starting A New Christmas Tradition

     Holidays always get a bit hectic at my girlfriend's parent's house.  With her family if you get more than one person in the kitchen at a time there is a lot of tension and sometimes some raised voices.  In the end the food always turns out great but sometimes it is a bit of  trial to get to that point.  This last Thanksgiving perhaps was highest tension dinner I've seen.  My girlfriend's older sister is back in town and she has not been part of the mix for the last few years as she lived far away. 

     Regardless of why or who's fault it is I decided that I would try to take the lead for Christmas dinner this year.  So first thing of course was I had to try and figure out a menu that everyone would like and that would not be too difficult that I would need a lot of help.  The start of this Christmas tradition actually ended up steming from last year's Christmas with my uncle down in Ft. Lauderdale Florida.  Last year my uncle made a huge prime rib roast which was absolutely to die for.  I helped him out with it so I knew pretty much what to do.  Of course I was a little scared about messing with a cut of meat that cost $9/lb and had to be big enough to server about 10.

     I decided to step up and try it.  So now that I have the main item figured out I need to think of some good side items that will be easy but will still be able to please and impress ten of my girlfriend's family members.  I decided on some garlic mashed potatoes because they are delicious and pretty simple in mass quantities, then we decided on corn because it is pretty universal, to add to that we wanted to steam some asparagus (but they were out so we did broccoli), and I wanted one more truely impressive item so I made some cheddar buttermilk bisquits from scratch.

     The recipe for the prime rib that I got some guidance from was right here http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Garlic-Prime-Rib/Detail.aspx. I used this plus some tips from my uncle.  I got the roast started and then we all sat down to open presents.  I had to get back into the kitchen as soon as the presents were done and get started on the potatoes, then make the dough for the bisquits, and before I knew it everything was coming together and someone had set the table.  We ended up sitting down to a simply delicious dinner with no built up tension.  At the end of it my girlfriend's father says, "We might have to make this a Christmas tradition." after a pause he continues, "Heck lets forget turkey for Thanksgiving I could eat this again".