17 Christmas Foods No One Knows Why We Still Serve

Holiday tables tend to follow tradition even when no one remembers exactly how some dishes earned their place.

Year after year, certain foods appear like clockwork, carried in from the kitchen with a mix of nostalgia and confusion.

They’re the recipes everyone recognizes, yet few can explain, lingering relics of past eras, old cookbooks, or family habits that stuck long after their original meaning faded.

1. Figgy Pudding

We’ve all sung about demanding figgy pudding in Christmas carols, but have you ever actually seen one? This mysterious British dessert contains figs, suet, and a whole lot of confusion about what makes it pudding.

It’s more like a dense, steamed cake that requires setting on fire before serving. Honestly, any dessert that needs flames for presentation is already suspect in our book.

2. Mince Pies

Despite the name, modern mince pies contain zero meat, just dried fruits and spices swimming in mystery goo.

Centuries ago, they actually had beef or mutton, which somehow makes today’s version seem reasonable by comparison.

These tiny pastries show up at every British Christmas gathering, and everyone politely nibbles one while secretly wondering why.

3. Ambrosia Salad

Calling this concoction a salad feels like culinary fraud. Marshmallows, canned fruit, coconut, and Cool Whip don’t magically become healthy just because you throw them in a bowl together.

Named after food of the gods, ambrosia tastes more like a kindergartener’s dream dessert. Yet Grandma insists it belongs right next to the turkey, blurring the line between side dish and sugar coma inducer.

4. Canned Cranberry Sauce

Fresh cranberries exist, people! Yet every year, someone ceremoniously slides that gelatinous cylinder from its can, ridges intact, and plops it on a fancy plate.

It maintains the exact shape of its aluminum prison, which should probably concern us more than it does.

The sound it makes leaving the can haunts our holiday memories, but tradition demands this wobbly tribute to convenience.

5. Fruitcake

Fruitcake has become the punchline of holiday jokes everywhere, yet it keeps showing up year after year. This dense brick of candied fruit and nuts supposedly lasts forever, which might explain why Aunt Carol’s been regifting the same one since 1987.

Most people admit they’ve never actually eaten it, just passed it along. Still, fruitcake persists as a Christmas tradition nobody asked for but everyone tolerates.

6. Rum Balls

These boozy chocolate spheres taste like someone melted cookies, added rum, and hoped for the best. They’re simultaneously too sweet and too strong, achieving a flavor balance that pleases absolutely nobody.

Grandparents make them by the dozen, insisting they’re sophisticated holiday treats.

Kids avoid them after one accidental bite, while adults choke them down out of politeness and mild curiosity about the alcohol content.

7. Ribbon Candy

Ribbon candy looks gorgeous sitting in crystal dishes, like edible stained glass. Then you actually try eating it and realize it’s been welded together into one giant sugar sculpture that could chip a tooth.

It’s basically decorative at this point, existing solely for aesthetic purposes.

Your grandmother’s ribbon candy has probably been the same piece since the Carter administration, just getting stickier and more dangerous annually.

8. Christmas Goose

Scrooge’s transformation included buying the prize goose, but most of us have never even seen one outside of Victorian literature.

Goose is greasier than turkey, harder to find, and way more expensive for basically the same bird experience.

Why did this become a Christmas thing? Mystery. Some families cling to it for tradition’s sake, while everyone else sticks with turkey and calls it a day.

9. Jell-O Molds

Nothing says Christmas dinner like a jiggly tower of artificially colored gelatin with random vegetables trapped inside.

The 1950s really loved suspending things in Jell-O, and some families refuse to let that fever dream die.

Watching it wobble on the buffet table is mildly entertaining, sure. Actually eating lime Jell-O with shredded carrots and celery? That’s where we draw the festive line, folks.

10. Boiled Custard

Southerners drink this thick, sweet, egg-based beverage during the holidays like it’s totally normal. It’s basically eggnog’s slightly less exciting cousin who showed up to the party anyway.

The name alone sounds unappealing – boiled custard – yet people serve it chilled, which adds another layer of confusion.

It coats your mouth in a way that makes you immediately need water, but families swear by it every December regardless.

11. Plum Pudding

Plot twist: plum pudding contains no plums. It’s a dense, dark, steamed cake packed with dried fruits and soaked in enough brandy to qualify as a fire hazard.

British tradition demands setting it ablaze before serving, because apparently regular desserts are too boring.

Most people agree it tastes like alcoholic fruitcake, which isn’t exactly the winning combination Christmas needed but somehow got anyway.

12. Marzipan Fruits

Someone decided molding almond paste into tiny fake fruits was peak holiday entertainment. These adorable little imposters look almost real until you bite into one and get a mouthful of dense, overly sweet almond clay.

Marzipan has that distinct texture that’s neither candy nor dough, existing in some weird in-between zone.

They’re pretty to display but disappointing to eat, making them perfect decorative regrets for your Christmas dessert table.

13. Black Bun

Scotland’s contribution to confusing Christmas foods is black bun – a dense fruitcake wrapped entirely in pastry. It’s like someone made fruitcake and thought, you know what this needs? More carbs.

The name makes it sound ominous, and honestly, the appearance delivers on that promise.

It’s dark, heavy, and packed with enough dried fruit and spices to preserve it until next Christmas, which might be the actual point.

14. Pickled Herring

Scandinavian families serve pickled herring during Christmas like it’s a treat rather than a dare. These vinegar-soaked fish chunks have a smell that clears rooms and a taste that’s somehow even more assertive.

It’s an acquired taste that most people never acquire, yet it appears at holiday gatherings year after year. Your Swedish relatives insist it’s delicious while everyone else discreetly hides theirs under a napkin.

15. Yule Log Cake

The extremely elaborate yule log cake takes hours to create, requiring professional-level skills to make it actually resemble a log.

Most homemade attempts look more like a chocolate tornado disaster than festive firewood.

French tradition gave us this complicated dessert that’s essentially fancy rolled cake. It tastes fine, sure, but is it worth the existential crisis that comes with trying to pipe realistic bark texture? Debatable at best.

16. Panettone

Italy’s giant dome of sweet bread shows up in stores every December, wrapped in fancy packaging that promises more than it delivers.

It looks impressive but tastes like someone forgot to add enough butter and flavor. People give them as gifts, and recipients smile politely while wondering what to do with this enormous, mediocre bread situation.

17. Hard Sauce

Hard sauce is neither hard nor particularly sauce-like, which makes the name a beautiful lie. It’s basically butter, sugar, and booze whipped together into a spreadable topping for Christmas puddings.

British tradition insists this butter-bomb enhances desserts, but it mostly just adds unnecessary richness to already-heavy sweets.

Americans look at it with suspicion, and honestly, that’s probably the correct response to alcoholic butter masquerading as condiment.