Well, we don’t need to tell you how 2020 has been. This Christmas might probably be very different from the years we’ve spent it with family and loved ones. Some of us from the United Planet Team will be sharing our Christmas family traditions, some new and old! Maybe you’ll get some ideas for starting your own Christmas traditions.
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
New Christmas Family Traditions
Marketing and Communications Manager, Amanda Soh, was born and raised in Malaysia. Her family would host a Christmas Eve dinner. Extended family, close family friends, and loved ones who might not celebrate Christmas were invited over to enjoy a feast (usually fusion!). On Christmas Day, they would also head to church together for a morning Christmas service.
“So, I moved to Boston in August 2019 and started a new journey with my husband. Since I’m thousands of miles away (9,148 miles to be exact, which is a 24-hour flight away), I’ll have to start new Christmas family traditions. So this year, my husband and I wanted to explore various traditions done during this season! We had a hand in decorating a gingerbread house for a mini-competition held by our local church.
Tried our best to recreate the Nativity scene for our Gingerbread house decorating!
“We are also attempting to cook a Christmas Eve dinner and have a friend over to enjoy it with us! My husband would be cooking up a beef wellington and I would be baking a Christmas yule log.”
Experiencing other traditions
Amanda also shared her experience of trying her very first English mince pies. “I truly thought mince pies were savory but to my surprise, they’re deliciously sweet! It was all because of the brandy-soaked dried fruits in the pie, which was scrumptious! I also had a fun time pulling onto a Christmas Craker with friends!”
Read More: Winter Holidays Around the World
“I remembered the eight of us would criss-cross our hands, holding one end of the Christmas cracker. Once we were set, we would pull on it together,” Amanda enthused.
Christmas Like Always
Callie Roberts, international programs coordinator shares that this year would be like any other despite the pandemic. She is definitely grateful for it! “Slowly as my brother and I have gotten older, our family Christmas traditions have changed. Over the last few years, we have just spent Christmas as an immediate family with our parents, rather than trying to coordinate a large family gathering (I have 6 aunts and uncles and about 15 cousins that live in all corners of the US!).
We like to spend Christmas Eve, opening all of the presents that we have gotten each other. This takes place over a few hours, as we like to mix in snacks, cocktails, and dinner and open presents leisurely. Opening presents at night means we get to sleep in on Christmas morning. We do, however, always save our stockings for the morning. My mom always makes “Sticky Buns”, which is essentially a mixture of bread dough, caramel glaze, and walnuts, baked in the oven to make a gooey, delicious breakfast. We will typically lounge around all day, and then have a dinner of homemade lasagna in the early afternoon. I have really come to enjoy a laid back holiday, which will be nice this year as it won’t be much different than normal with COVID… we will continue to stay home!”
Cozier Christmas
Gaia Nicoloso, our Partnership Coordinator is based in Italy and she shares her Christmas family traditions. “Contrary to what someone may expect, Christmas in my house doesn’t correspond to the typical imagery of Italians. In fact, rather than gatherings of zillion relatives and lunch at a fancy restaurant, we always opted for a cozier celebration. It usually is with only with my Nana and my uncle coming over. I am used to spending Christmas day with my parents and my sister in our house, starting with a generous breakfast– generally involving Nutella– and unwrapping presents by the Christmas tree. We take our mornings slow and steady, then we start setting the dining table with decorations and prep for lunch. It’s not a Christmas celebration without my grandmother’s lasagna– it’s always on the menu.”
“Other than the usual 4-5 courses, something very typical in my house during holidays is to cut the Pandoro (an Italian traditional treat) in a way that it resembles a Christmas tree, and eat it with an amazingly sweet cream made out of Mascarpone.” Also, Gaia mentioned the Christmas Eve feast would be enough to feed her family until the 27th!
A picture of a Pandoro!
“Of course Christmas Day is wonderful but the most precious days, for me, are the two days before it! It’s actually my grandmother’s birthday on Christmas Eve (she will turn 95 this year!!). It’s the most special occasion for the whole family from all over the region to gather under one roof. Furthermore, on the evening of December 23, my dad and his orchestra performed a delightful Christmas concert that sells out year after year. Such a joyful moment!”
Gaia shared described Christmas in her house as “sounding like Jazz music and tastes like home-made lasagna with ragù.”
ABOUT UNITED PLANET
United Planet is a non-profit organization with a mission to create a global community, one relationship at a time. Established in 2001, United Planet offers volunteer abroad, virtual internships, internships abroad, gap year volunteering, and global virtual exchange in more than 40 countries.
