“Christmas Dinner” / Virtual Eric / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The foods that deck a person’s plate during the holiday season are often beloved with longstanding family recipes, but many of these recipes render garbage dishes.

Holiday foods are delicious treats that remind us of our traditions and culture. But how do many of these dishes actually measure up?

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie is a banger dish, on par with literal ambrosia. God envies me because of how much pumpkin pie I get to enjoy. Unfortunately, I can’t finish writing about how absolutely top-tier pumpkin pie is because I really do need my second hand back so I can shove slices in my face even faster.

Mashed Potatoes

As unappetizing as they look and sound, mashed potatoes cushion my existence against the long hard nights of college applications, homework, and the other meaningless drivel of life; they are the pillow beneath my weary head. Mashed potatoes keep my soul going. The bland expanse of empty starch drowns the sorrows of man better than any alcohol could. This is not a cry for help.

If you like garlic mashed potatoes, however, please reconsider your existence. Garlic belongs in dishes with savory flavors beyond the wasteland of nutritionless starch (which is good to lose yourself in, don’t get me wrong). Garlic in spaghetti? Extraordinary. Delightful. In mashed potatoes? Cringe. Disgusting.

Cranberry Sauce

If you don’t like cranberries, you’re wrong. Just eat them and enjoy them. They are delightful. Cranberry sauce is best homemade with orange spice tea (it infuses the final dish with a wonderful flavor) instead of plain water. If you have cranberry sauce from the can, while I respect the frugal mindset, you are enjoying an inferior cranberry sauce. 

“Why are you writing so much about cranberry sauce?” some may kvetch and bellyache.

Oh, ye of little faith. This is because cranberry sauce runs in my veins. I eat that stuff straight from the pot by the ladleful like a nasty little gremlin who steals soup from widows’ cauldrons in fairy tales, like Adam and Eve who ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Cranberry sauce is the liquid of heaven, the water that flows in the fountain of youth.

Yule Logs

Yule logs look cool, but they are actually quite mediocre. They’re like holiday food sleeper agents. The cake feels like it belongs at your horridly boring ninety-year-old grandmother’s birthday party that took place in a church room, and the evening after everyone got food poisoning from the pigs-in-a-blanket (except your grandmother since she slept through the whole affair). Really, the only notable component of this dish is the design.

Latkes

Latkes are very valid and a lovely holiday dish, except for the fact they are commonly eaten with sour cream. Sour cream is absolutely repulsive, and anyone who says otherwise should bathe in it for the rest of eternity and wallow in its fetid stench like the pigs they are. Sour cream is so nasty. Applesauce is a delightful topping and honestly should be used as a topping for other foods more often, so kudos to latkes for their work in that field.

Turkey

I don’t care what turkey-hating heathens say; turkey is a delight when properly cooked. If your turkey is seasoned and cooked right, it is a heavenly wonder and so, so good.

Some notable individuals have claimed to me that steak is better than turkey. You know what? They can enjoy their stupid holiday steak, ignorant to the fact they are singlehandedly responsible for the collapse of the American nuclear family. This is the cause of the great decline of western civilization. These steak-eaters are the reason for the roughly 50% divorce rate in the U.S. How does it feel to be a homewrecker?

Overall, holiday food is, by and large, quite good, except when weirdos who like their food quirky try to make adjustments.