As a child, I generally spent Christmas in Scotland with my parents and sometimes we went to see family in Ireland over the festive season. We also spent Christmas 1982 in California as we lived in San Jose from 1982-1983. As our son’s only 19 months old, we haven’t really got into a Christmas routine yet as last year was his first Christmas. Indeed, he was kind enough to write me a blog post about what it was like.
At the age of only 8 months old, our son was kind enough to write a blog post about his first Christmas…
Last year, we went to the south east of England to spend Christmas with about twenty members of my wife’s family. This year, we’ve decided to do things slightly differently. We moved to a new house just over three months ago and have decided to invite my parents and my wife’s parents to spend Christmas with us here in Wales as we now have a bit more space. The local area is rural and quite hilly and I’d go as far as saying that it can almost look like Narnia when it snows.
I’d really like there to be snow this year as our son is yet to have his first experience of walking in snow or building a snowman. That said, wet weather will be good too as I know that Santa Claus thinks that it helps his rain-deer. As you may have guessed from the last sentence, I’m quite keen on the British tradition of telling corny jokes at Christmas. In fact, I talked about this last year in a post entitled 5 things I like about Christmas in the UK.
In a lot ways, we probably don’t always have a very traditional British Christmas as my wife, son and I are vegetarian. Instead of having turkey, we often make a spicy nut roast with tomato chilli gravy. We do have the traditional roast potatoes and brussel sprouts, but I quite like to stir fry the sprouts with soy sauce, chilli and paneer (an Indian form of cheese). At work last year, my colleagues collectively decided to forego a traditional Christmas meal for our end of term evening out and instead had a fantastic Chinese buffet. Consequently, we had fortune cookies rather than Christmas crackers. As it happens, we’re going back to the same place for our pre-Christmas outing again this year.
Our son has already been getting into the Christmas spirit and has been enjoying wearing his two Christmas jumpers. We actually let him wear them before December had started as we went to a Christmas market about ten days ago in the nearby town of Llandudno. Doing anything to mark Christmas before it’s actually December, such as putting up decorations, doesn’t really feel right but it was fun to take him out to the market.
As it happens, some of the students that I teach at university were talking a few weeks ago about how they found it irritating to see decorations up while it was still November. I had to break it gently to them that we were about to study a book whose first word was ‘Noël’. The novel in question was Azouz Begag’s Béni ou le Paradis Privé, which tells the story of boy who is born in Lyon to Algerian parents. The opening sees the boy talk in a jovial manner about his experiences of being from a Muslim family in France in the weeks before Christmas. As part of this revolves around the boy wanting his parents to get a Christmas tree, I decided to deliver the first class about the novel with a miniature Christmas tree and Father Christmas on the desk at the front of the classroom. It was still November, but I think my students let me get away with it.
Whatever you are doing to mark Christmas this year, and even if you’re not, I’d like to wish everyone reading this a great end to 2014 and a fantastic 2015.
I’ve written this post as part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs series ‘Christmas in Different Lands’. Click on this link if you would like to read more posts by parent bloggers about Christmas around the world.
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Dec 03, 2014 @ 04:41:52
Ha ha ha, “Rain-deer”, love it! I’m going to have to use that at some point, so I’ll make sure to give you credit. Corny jokes are the best and I wouldn’t have it any other way!
We’re in the same boat as far as setting tradition goes since our daughter is just now a year old. Hopefully next year we’ll get more into it.
At my old job, I worked with a lot of people from Boston, MA and Chinese food is very popular around Christmas and New Year’s too. I used to love Chinese before I became really into making my own food. Texas DOES NOT have good Chinese, so I will have to find it when travelling some day.
Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas and hope you get that snow for your son!
Dec 03, 2014 @ 22:55:51
Seeing as I know you like this sort of joke, here’s another one for you:
How do you make gold soup?
Put nine carrots in it!
Our son seems to be inheriting our love of Chinese food as he’s very keen on noodles and tofu at the moment. I generally have a slight preference for Indian food over Chinese, but we’re lucky to have some really good Chinese restaurants nearby. By the way, I know Boston (MA) a bit myself as I have some family from Ireland who lived there for about ten years – it was a great city to visit!
I hope that you and your family have a great Christmas too!
Dec 04, 2014 @ 04:52:37
Ha ha, love the carrot pun, haven’t heard that one! Thanks for sharing.
I agree about Boston, it’s great to visit, but I could never live there myself. Enjoy the Chinese food, I’m jealous!
Dec 03, 2014 @ 21:51:02
Your nut roast sounds really good. I am vegetarian and our kids are too. My husband eats vegetarian at home.
Dec 03, 2014 @ 22:42:33
We loved the nut roast. I think we found it in a magazine of vegetarian Christmas recipes a few years ago.
Dec 04, 2014 @ 00:39:42
I would love to learn how you make your spicy nut roast! We aren’t vegetarian, but I try to eat vegetarian several days each week.
Dec 19, 2014 @ 21:36:37
It’s like a normal nut roast with some crushed garlic, a green chilli and some coriander added to the nut and vegetable mixture. The spicy tomato gravy is mainly made out of passata with some chilli powder, black pepper and mustard seeds. I’ve looked for the recipe online but can’t find it.
Dec 05, 2014 @ 10:25:05
I was a veggie for many years and always had delicious xmas dinners, yours sounds lovely. Christmas becomes even more magical as your children get a bit older and more able to understand the experience. #binkylinky
Dec 19, 2014 @ 21:29:07
That’s so true about Christmas, it’s even more special this year as our son kind of understands what’s going on in some sort of small way.
Dec 06, 2014 @ 12:28:56
Love the Rain-deer joke! I am a fan of corny jokes.
The picture of the snowy mountain is just beautiful! I hope that you get to make a snowman soon.
Dec 06, 2014 @ 18:05:28
It sounds – and looks – like you are all going to have a wonderful Christmas in Wales. The photo of that mountain is enough to make anyone feel festive. Your boy is getting so grown up. Thank you for linking to #PoCoLo 🙂 x
Dec 19, 2014 @ 21:37:18
It does indeed look really festive when the snow falls. I’ve got my fingers crossed for snow this year!
Dec 07, 2014 @ 12:11:19
Great to see a guy blogging about kids. Hi from Australia. We live in Sydney where we never ever get snow, let alone at Christmas.
Dec 19, 2014 @ 21:38:34
Thanks, great to know that my blog post about Wales is being read in New South Wales too! Hope you have a great Christmas!
Dec 11, 2014 @ 07:48:40
Wow, it does look magical there! How fun to invite everyone to your new home this year to celebrate!
Dec 19, 2014 @ 21:40:00
Yes, it does look special when all the hills are covered in snow. This week has been my last full week at work and our relatives are arriving this weekend.