Christmas Dinner - Island Style

I was raised in an English family and Christmas Day dinner was a big event - turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, etc. It was like a Thanksgiving part deux and my mum would spend several hours on Christmas day preparing and cooking the amazing meal.

But this year the hubby and I had three large turkey meals around Thanksgiving over the course of two weeks and well, by Christmas, we were pretty turkeyed out.

Since we live in the islands, we decided to change it up and make it a seafood Christmas dinner. I was a little worried in case the meal didn't feel like Christmas, but I have to admit, it was a blast.
We dined on a macadamia nut crusted Mahi Mahi, stuffed with Alaskan crab and served with grilled shrimp and a lemon coconut sauce.
The recipe for the Mahi Mahi was a loose interpretation/combination of three recipes I found on the web and the lemon coconut sauce was my own creation.

Personally the best part was that it was only an hour from prep to table. I didn't have to spend the whole day preparing the feast. Instead I was able to enjoy Christmas day, only spend an hour in the kitchen, and we still had a wonderful Christmas dinner.

I let the hubby relax while I prepared most of the meal but I did ask him for help on two parts: crushing the macadamia nuts and removing the crab from the hard shell of the legs.

Because the meal was such a success, I have a feeling those large turkey dinners might be a Thanksgiving-only meal in the future.