Published: December 25, 2008 09:47 pm      

Not all Christmas fare traditional

Tired of ham, turkey and all the trimmings through the holidays, some meal partakers opted for different fare on Christmas Day — fried rice, spring rolls and teriyaki chicken.

“It’s something easy,” said Robert Epps, who was with several family members at Chef Lin Buffet in Bry-Man’s Plaza North on Thursday. Across the table, his mother, Bonnie Stacy, opened a Christmas gift.

Nearby, Kenny Stacy said that Asian dining on Dec. 25 had become a family affair.

“We’ve been coming to different (Oriental) restaurants since 1995,” he said. “To keep from cooking is part of it, but we just sort of made it a family tradition, like the movie, ‘A Christmas Story.’”

In the 1983 film classic, a family ends up dining in a Chinese restaurant after a pack of neighborhood dogs get in the house and ravages the father’s well-planned turkey dinner. The final scene shows a chef unexpectedly chopping off the head of a Peking duck (or “Chinese turkey”) so the mother will not have to look at it while eating.

Donna Sexton said eating at the restaurant became an expedient option after her father went to Florida.

“We do family, but Dad moved to Florida and so we came down here,” she said, feeding her son Brandon, 10 months, off her plate. “We may come here again, depending on what Dad does. But he wanted to do Christmas at his new house this year.”

One solitary diner said he was going to visit friends on Christmas Day, but “had a falling out because their dog attacked my dog, and it kind of ‘soured out’ my plans.”

Maria Fuentes, speaking with the help of her son, Luis, who was translating, said, “We were invited to something else, but then got invited here. I like doing this, better than a traditional meal.”

Mark Ramos replied, “We don’t have nothing to do at home, so we came here. We gave out all our gifts on Christmas Eve at midnight, and went to bed about 3 a.m.”

Keith Page said his family was “tired” of eating traditional holiday food.

“We had Christmas dinner yesterday with all the ham and turkey and stuff, so we wanted to do something different,” he said. “Our family is kind of spread out now, so we visit relatives on Christmas Day.”

“Christmas is pretty much over for us,” said his wife, Angie. “We do everything on Christmas Eve.”