Coming from mixed cultures, my family has a number of holiday traditions. Most of them revolve around food, naturally. Starting long before I was born the G family makes dozens of tamales together, attends Christmas Eve Mass, followed by throwing back a couple Christmas cocktails and then ALL of the family that lives nearby and those who can make it “home” come together for dinner to devour the aforementioned tamales, the kids then destroy a piñata and we open presents. It really is the best night of the year!
With my mother being Eastern Orthodox she also observes Christmas on January 7, the day after Epiphany for Western Christians. For us kids she deemed this “Little Christmas”. She’d prepare a traditional Ukrainian meal of borscht (beet soup) and holubtsi (cabbage rolls) and pyrizhki (fried dough stuffed with fruit filling). Mum would buy us each a smaller gift to open after dinner, which was really cool as a kid. This also meant our Christmas tree was up for nearly two months because she puts it up Thanksgiving weekend!
When J and I started dating we spent our first Christmas together in Virginia and we continued to celebrate it there before leaving. Holidays are hectic enough so travel is really unappealing, even more so after The Gents arrived. It's tough not being around family at Christmas, so it's been important that we maintain and create traditions of our own. I would love to boast that I make tamales for Christmas Eve and holubtsi at Little Christmas. Admittedly, it’s a ton of work. I’m amazed at my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles with the amount of time, effort, and love put into these meals. Maybe I was spoiled having them dote on me for years, I just don’t want to slave away in the kitchen for a couple days preparing a meal. Plus, I can't even imagine finding the time with The Gents being pretty demanding of my time lately.
As kids our Christmas was really different than our friends and it was sometimes awkward explaining what we ate and why we celebrated the way we did. I’m so thankful for our upbringing though and being exposed to these different traditions. I think it’s made me more open minded and interested in other cultures. One day I’ll tackle this for the gents because I want them to experience these traditions as well.
Until then I’ll do what’s manageable, like get dressed up for Christmas Eve Mass (even thought we weren't able to go this year...sigh) and enjoy a beautiful meal prepared by someone else. Christmas Eve is no fuss and we really enjoy going out for a special dinner that night, but I do cook on Christmas Day. The menu changes, but what has inadvertently become our one culinary tradition over the last 5 years is “Christmas Risotto”, as J appropriately named it last year. I think it’s officially a keeper for the holiday. And this year for the first time, thanks to some inspiration from a friend here, I baked and decorated about 100 sugar cookies. So I guess I can say I have maintained that our Christmas traditions do revolve around food! Am looking forward to developing more food traditions over the years, and keeping some I grew up with. And since I said a year ago that I would post the Christmas Risotto recipe, I'm finally getting around to it. Thanks for being patient. xo