from medieval England. Trifle, mince pies, Christmas cake or a yule log are also popular. By the 21st century, some British citizens were changing their Christmas dinner traditions with a growing number selecting vegetarian and vegan versions of traditional UK Christmas meals. North America Canada In English-speaking Canada, Christmas dinner is similar to that of Britain. Traditional Christmas dinner features turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and vegetables. Other types of poultry, roast beef, or ham, are also used. Pumpkin or apple pie, raisin pudding, Christmas pudding, or fruitcake are staples for dessert. Eggnog, a milk-based punch often infused with alcohol, is also popular around the holiday season. Other Christmas items include Christmas cookies, butter tarts, and shortbread, which are traditionally baked before the holidays and served to visiting friends at Christmas and New Year parties, as well as on Christmas Day. In French-speaking Canada, traditions may be more like those of France. (See Réveillon.) Other ethnic communities may continue to use old-world traditions as well. United States Christmas traditions in the United States have eclectic origins, with predominant ones from the United Kingdom in most states. However, many others traditions are also celebrated, due to many years of influence from Europe (Spain, Scandinavia, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, etc.) as well as more recent influence from Latin American regions like Florida and the Caribbean. Therefore, the substrate of the meal usually is British in origin: roasted root vegetables as a side dish, mashed potatoes, gravy, and the centerpiece being a stuffed roasted fowl (pheasant, goose, duck, or turkey) or an expensive cut of roasted beef or beef Wellington. In the South, an area that has a very high concentration of people of UK extraction from centuries past, Christmas is the time of year in which many variations on a country ham or Christmas ham get served. This is an older British tradition that would predate the Victorian tradition of Dickens and his turkey and go back into medieval England, brought by poorer classes who could not afford the turkey that was fashionable among wealthier men in the Stuart era. Cookies of many kinds have been present in America for hundreds of years and often are either gingerbread, snickerdoodles, or sugar cookies baked throughout December and fashioned into many shapes and figures. Fruitcake is similar to the traditional British Christmas pudding; however, it serves more as a national