Going Out for Dinner : A Sanity Clause for the Holidays

Dim the lights, pull down the window shades and--above all--lower voices. We are going to talk heresy here: A traditional multicourse dinner is not a holiday or a New’s Day necessity.

Some people think the alternative holiday dinner means substituting a goose or a salmon or a vegetarian curry. That is emphatically not what we mean (we are, remember, talking heresy). We mean not having a big, rich holiday dinner at all.

Many people are jettisoning this particular holiday custom. This has nothing to do with being iconoclastic; some of our holiday non-cooks firmly draw the line at such 20th-Century horrors as plastic holly and “Jingle Bell Rock.� It has everything to do with sanity.

Keep It Simple

There are undoubtedly people out there who adore making a big multi-course dinner for the multitudes on a holiday. There are undoubtedly people out there who can go to a big boozy party the night before and still feel energetic enough to get up early and bake pies. (By people, you know whom we mean, don’t you?: superwomen.) For many, though, holiay dinner is just an exhausting capper to a season that has already included too much rushing around and too much food.

Yes, Virginia, there is a sanity clause. It is called “going out to dinner.�

Eating out on a holiday strikes some as being roughly akin to a hot bath and a trashy novel on New Year’s Eve: the last resort of society’s left-behinds. One envisions restaurants populated only by lonely oldsters weeping silently into their food and surly, put-upon waitresses who would rather be anywhere else.

Actually, though, there are quite a few restaurants open on holidays, and their mood is more festive than funereal.

Go to a Hotel Restaurant

The holiday mainstay is the Chinese restaurant. Other best bets are hotel restaurants, which often must stay open for their traveling customers.

As an antidote to too many partiess and too much holiday music, you can seek out a Kosher place, but if you want a double dose of the old-time holiday spirit, there are plenty of restaurants all too ready to oblige with a multi-course feast.

Staying at home can be hassle-free, too, if you plan it right. Here are a few ideas to help you get an alternative holiday dinner under way:

--A picnic under the Christmas tree. When the wrappings are cleared away, lay down a colorful throw and bring out the wonderful cheeses, pates, breads and pasta salads you purchased or made ahead of time. Get the electric trains going. Tie tinsel in each other’s hair and act silly. Toast the season with eggnog or Champagne.

Holiday brunch. Make it a big enough spread that the intimates will not care that they are not getting a turkey. Juice, coffee, Danish, toasted bagels, cream cheese and smoked fish to start. If the woman of the house has always been responsible for holiday dinner, recruit the man of the house to make omelets or waffles. If you are feeling flush, serve caviar (the inexpensive lumpfish is fine) with toast points, chopped onion and chopped egg.

Invite Your Friends

An international potluck. Invite neighbors and friends who have also had it with the big sit-down meal syndrome to a potluck supper. Have each one bring a dish reflective of his or her own ethnic or family background. Celebrate the neighborhood’s diversity while swapping stories about childhoods. Nostalgia is a healthy holiday pastime.

A fondue party. A staple in ‘60s intellectual circles, fondue is fun without being a lot of work. The basic Swiss cheese fondue with bread can be accompanied by a fondue Bourguignonne (cubes of meat, to be skewered and cooked in a pot of hot oil) or chocolate fondue (with chopped fruit and chunks of angel food cake for dunking).

The fondue tradition is that any woman who loses her bread in the fondue has to kiss all the men, so you won’t even need the mistletoe.

A couch potato holiday. If you have a VCR, bring out videos. Serve a no-sweat, help-yourself dish, such as a honey-baked ham cooked in advance. Relax for a change.

Most of all, remember that any meal shared with people you love--even a carton of carry-out lo mein --can turn into a cherished holiday tradition.