It’s only two days to Christmas! Christmas day is a busy, yet happy time for me as I catch up with family and friends. My Christmas day has evolved from family tradition, including the hot roast lunch.
My day will start like any other morning when I am at my mum’s home. We will have muesli and fruit for breakfast and drink green tea. We will then take Henri, her dog, for a walk. Mid morning we will break for another cup of tea, probably chai. During the morning I will be offered various foods to eat, including chocolate, mixed nuts, fruitcake and shortbread biscuits. Mum always seems to forget that I have never eaten shortbread biscuits. She makes them especially for Christmas so thinks that I should try them!
Late morning we will go to my sisters home. We share news and photos that haven’t been posted on Facebook. Lunch is roast pork and vegetables in a large serve if you are not quick to supervise the plating of the food! I will happily substitute the pork with lentil burgers. I still recall my nanna’s Christmas lunches as they were three course (at least) and we would start with chicken soup! Yes, our Christmas day is celebrated with plentiful food.
We happily take a break between the hot meal and dessert. There are usually two choices for dessert, plum pudding and cream or pavlova. You can understand why we need a break! I will have plum pudding and cream. In the past we used to eat several portions of plum pudding as my nanna put old coins in the pudding, which would be exchanged for modern currency. Unfortunately this encouraged us children (and some adults) to eat well beyond satisfaction, sometimes to extremely overfull!
After lunch we exchange small gifts and make calls to family and friends. Those who are willing and able will go for an afternoon or evening walk. The walk greatly assists our digestion if we have overeaten! Do we have dinner too? Well this depends on how hungry we all are. If we do eat it is usually something small and light. Traditional Christmas dinner consist of vegetable salad with meat or cheese, or we may just have fruit salad or left over dessert.
I am looking forward to my Christmas day. Over time our family has created a day that allows time for talking, eating, resting and moving. We enjoy nutritious foods and some treats. But most importantly we enjoy sharing our time together. I wish you a very happy Christmas and I look forward to learning of your Christmas traditions.