Celebrating holiday traditions

KELLOGG — Across the globe, families from different cultures celebrate the holidays in different ways, from Christmas to Kwanzaa and everything in between.

Around 30 years ago, my parents created the tradition of celebrating Christmas Eve by preparing and eating food from a different country. Cooking and baking is an act of love for many in my family, so each family member is given a recipe to prepare every year. Then, before dinner, we go over the menu and chat about the country we eat the food from and how they celebrate during the Holiday season.

“The first Christmas that your father and I were married in Glendive, Mont., we decided to fix a traditional English menu for our Christmas Eve dinner,” explained my mom, Carol Roberts, an alumni reporter of the Shoshone News-Press.

“Every other year, when we were home for Christmas, we would choose a different county, find recipes and fix food from that country for our Christmas Eve dinner and learn about the Christmas traditions and customs.”

My mom would reach out to family members or friends she knew who lived or had ancestral roots in that country.

“When we lived in Meridian, Idaho, we ate food from Hungary and a friend shared with us some special candies that she had received from her Hungarian relatives. We did Italy one year and learned from our Italian sister-in-law how to make a special squash ravioli, making the pasta from scratch.”

When my family moved to Kellogg in 2000, our neighbors across the street had been missionaries in Thailand, and they shared an authentic Thai cookbook and some other unique items from Thailand.

“Another year, some family friends had their roots in Ukraine, and we made a traditional Ukrainian feast using a cabbage roll recipe that was passed down from this family’s relatives. One dear friend, who joined us each year for our Christmas Eve feasts, had Scottish roots and we adorned our home with her many decorations from that country.”

Throughout the years, different family friends have also joined the table, some years hosting our immediate family of five, with other years celebrating with around 20 people.

“We have learned about Christmas traditions from around the globe, preparing meals from many European countries, Morocco, Latin America, China, Japan, India, Vietnam, Australia, Russia and Cuba. One of our first meals was a Mexican Christmas dinner. But we have never celebrated food from our neighbors to the north.”

That’s changing this year, we are basing our dinner on the French Canadian Reveillon Dinner, which is traditionally eaten after mass on Christmas Eve. This year's menu includes mulled wine, Tourtière tart, Hot Butter Rum, Pork Pate, Butter Root Vegetables, Pea Soup, Quick-pickles with quatre-epices, Maple Yule Log and Buttered Tarts.

However, you celebrate this Holiday Season, stay warm, stay safe, and have a Joyeux Noël! (Merry Christmas).