Cameron Diaz, Others Use Special Holiday Ingredients To Make It ...

Stars and their families around the world will gather to share many traditional Christmas customs with each other, and not surprisingly, many have invented some unique customs of their own to celebrate the season.
While some will wear funny hats and practice odd secret rituals, some will serve tacos all day long, while still others add gunpowder or even a strand of hair to holiday baked goods to celebrate the special day.
Perhaps no star puts as much of herself into the holidays as sexy superstar Cameron Diaz.
Each year, Diaz whips up a big batch of special cinnamon and chocolate holiday cookies just for family and friends that includes a unique ingredient each year a single strand of her own hair.
Its a Pennsylvania Dutch custom called shalling, says the star with a smile. Its an 18th century custom created by Pennsylvania Dutch families to bring people closer together and it really brings a smile to the face of family and friends.
Diaz, whose voice will be heard by millions of adults and kids on December 22 when ABC broadcasts Shrek The Halls,' a computer-animated Christmas special centered around the Dreamworks Animation characters that also features the voice work of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Antonio Banderas, says she only bakes up about four dozen of the special cookies each year for obvious reasons and that the first time she tried it out, the reaction from family and friends was a bit mixed.
I had one boyfriend call me the Squeaky Fromme of the Kitchen, Diaz says with a grimace. He would joke, Whats next, shalling with Jello Mold Salad?
But for most people, they appreciate its uniqueness and the thoughtfulness of it, and the time that I take, and they can always just pull the hair out anyway if they dont like it.
Actress Julianne Moore is another celeb with a special holiday ingredient to make her holiday treats extra special in her case, a teeny dash of gunpowder to top her special holiday muffins.
'I grew up as an army brat. So for Christmas I make these muffins that I decorate all Christmassy and ham salad sandwich recipe then I add just a pinch of gunpowder to the crown to give them more of a back story,' said the star of the coming film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.
'They look good, but no one wants to eat them because they taste just awful, said Moore, whose role in Fernando Meirelles Blindness this year -- in which an entire city is ravaged by an epidemic of instant 'white blindness -- is generating significant Oscar buzz this season.
'Someone even went so far as to tell me they taste like cold flannel and that I should do everyone a favour and catalina salad dressing take a cooking course for Christmas.'
The mother of two said she had no time for a cooking course this year, so she planned to take her family out for Christmas dinner to avoid a potential catastrophe. Blindness also starred Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Alice Braga and Gael Garca Bernal.
Moore also recommends a tip found in cookbooks written by celebrity Amy Sedaris and others: When in doubt, add a cup of crushed potato chips to any recipe as a way smooth everything out, she says.
Burn After Reading star George Clooney is also a celebrity who plans to spend significant holiday time in the kitchen.
People come to my house for tacofest on Christmas Day,' says Peoples sexiest man alive. 'The boys come over to play basketball. Later the wives come and we all watch a movie.
'I've been through life with these people. It's a close-knit family.'
Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, the star of Baz Luhrmanns epic Australia, will be spending the holiday this year sweating -- where else? in Australia.
I do Christmas every year,' Kidman said. 'It will be a classic English meal with all the trimmings. There are a lot of women in my family and we all cook. We'll sweat while we cook in the sweltering heat and there'll be a lot of arguments in the kitchen in Sydney, but boy, we get that meal on the table, no matter what. It feels like a miracle every year.'
This year will be the first Christmas with her daughter, Sunday Rose who, like the rest of the family, is already a big fan of Chex Mix.
'My sister's kids, my kids, my mum, my husband's family - and I mean his whole family! - will all be there. All of us together eating Chex Mix - that is the best of all,' Kidman said.
Katie Holmes, who made her Broadway debut in autumn, and her husband, Tom Cruise, who will next be seen in Valkyrie, will spend their Christmas with their families in Telluride, Colorado.
'I will probably cook some garlic mashed potatoes and maybe a cheesecake, she says. And we always make a lot of sugar cookies with decorating and broccoli salad with raisins and sunflower seeds sprinkles. Our daughter, Suri, will be in the dough everywhere.
Tom's really good in the kitchen. He makes great pasta carbonara and lemon pasta.'
Not everyone enjoys cooking, though. Tom Hanks, who in May will be seen in Angels - Demons, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code, focuses on other holiday rituals including the wearing of special hats.
'In our family, we have a sort of ritualistic countdown. We even wear certain hats at certain times and we play certain music. Things have got to happen at exact times or chaos breaks out.'
And for Sarah Jessica Parker, 43, Christmas is constantly evolving.
'Christmases have been the same my whole life,' the Sex and the City star said.
'My big family has expanded over the years and Christmas has more meaning after we (she and husband, Matthew Broderick) had a child. We have an entirely different relationship to the holiday season now. It's all about funtogetherness.'

Read more about easy macaroni salad recipe on top sites:
allrecipes
easysaladrecipes
cooksrecipes