At our house, Christmas Eve has always meant a delicous seafood dinner complete with all of the trimmings.

Depending on financial circumstances, or the length of our guest list, we've been known to serve everything from calamari to lobster tails. If it swims, it's made an appearance on our Christmas Eve dinner table at some point or another.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes

The Feast of the Seven Fishes dates back to the medieval Catholic tradition of refraining from eating meat on Fridays and specified Holy days. Many Italian families still carry out the traditon of serving 7 types of seafood on Christmas eve.

Although we do continue the traditional fish dinner at our house, we don't keep a tally of the different types. We do however always feature fish in the main course, usually served with a pasta dish on the side.

My family likes their seafood prepared in a very simple, non-gourmet style and the recipes you'll find here reflect that. Much of the dinner can be prepared ahead of time to make your holiday entertaining less stressed.

Christmas Eve Appetizers

My personal favorite Christmas Eve appetizer is Shrimp Cocktail because it is an easy to make appetizer that can be prepared and plated ahead of time and either served individually, using small dessert plates or bowls, for small gatherings or presented on a platter when you are entertaining a crowd. Either way, quickly boiled and then chilled large, or extra large, Shrimp served on a bed of lettuce with fresh lemon slices on the side makes a gorgeous display that will be gobbled up in no time.

A simple cold seafood salad (also prepared ahead of time) using cooked (boiled) sliced calamari, scallops, smaller sized shrimp and thinly sliced celery, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, fresh lemon juice and your favorite italian seasonings is another favorite Christmas Eve appetizer at our house.

A vegetable, olive, and cheese antipasto platter, or a nice Caprese salad (Fresh Mozzarella and Tomato) goes well with the fish appetizers while also keeping this portion of the meal light.

Christmas Eve Main Course

In years past our traditional Christmas Eve main course always consisted of fried fish, shrimp, scallops, and calamari, but lately we've been shying away from too much fried food and although I will still prepare a little bit of our favorite fried delicacies, we now serve a seafood and pasta dish for our Christmas Eve Main course.

In good years, the tomato sauce will be made with cut-up lobster as it's base. In poorer years we may substitute clams, shrimp, or mussels but no matter what seafood is used, tomato based seafood sauce is delicous.

Seafood Tomato Sauce Recipe

To make the seafood tomato sauce I use a quick marinara sauce recipe, similar to the one found in Giada De Laurentiis', Giada's Family Dinners cookbook, except I use less onion and add parsley to mine.

Ingredients for My Quick Marinara Sauce

• 2 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes
• 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 4 cloves of garlic chopped fine
• 1 small onion chopped fine
• Handful of fresh basil leaves
• Handful of fresh parsley (destemmed)
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

I don't add salt when using this recipe with seafood because the seafood tends to add a bit of salty flavoring but if you are making this sauce to be used without seafood, you might want to flavor it up a bit with a dash of salt.

Directions

In a blender puree canned tomatoes, basil and parsley. Set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a large sauce pan over medium low heat. Add the chopped onions and garlic and saute for about ten minutes until tender.

Stir in the pureed tomato combination along with the remaining ingredients. Bring to to a bubbling full simmer over medium high heat and then decrease heat until the sauce is just slightly simmering. Continue to cook until the sauce starts to thicken, about fifteen minutes.

Double the recipe if serving a large crowd.

This sauce can be made one day ahead, cooled, and then kept in the fridge until ready to use. Re-heat before using.

On any other night of the year you can serve the marinara sauce as is, or add any of your favorite cooked meats or veggies but on Christmas Eve, we'll add some fish.

Tip: If you have any guests who just can't, or won't, eat anything seafood, save a bit of this sauce before adding the fish. Serve over pasta and drizzle with Parmesan cheese.

Seafood Tomato Sauce

After preparing the Quick Marinara Sauce, shown above, simply add your favorite uncooked seafood to the sauce and heat at medium temperature until the seafood is cooked through. Depending on what you are serving, this usually only takes about ten to fifteen minutes.

Seafood You Can Add to the Sauce

There are no measurments given here. You can determine how much of anything you will add by the amount of guests you will be serving. One cut-up lobster can feed 2 to 3 people when served over pasta. A pound of shrimp can feed up to 4 depending on your guests appetites.

• cut up lobster (claws cracked)
• shrimp
• mussels
• clams
• calamari
• scungili
• scallops

Use each ingredient individually or in any combination of the above.

Serve hot over cooked pasta. We like linguine but you can use your favorite.

Christmas Eve Sides

For side dishes I usually go with hot, crusty garlic-smeared Italian bread and a nice green salad drizzled with a vinegrette dressing, but to fancy it up a bit you can serve your favorite vegetable dishes too.

Christmas Eve Desserts

After the meal, we usually set out a bowl of fresh fruit and some steaming roasted chestnuts.

Some suggestions for a nice Christmas Eve dessert might include a cherry topped cheesecake, rigotta pie, or a fruit tart, and always some homemade Christmas cookies.

Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday and a joyous New Year!