My Christmas Dinner Traditions

I have been asked by Balsam Hill to talk about my Christmas Dinner Traditions as part of a project about discovering what people around the world have for Christmas dinner. I thought this was a very interesting project to be a part of, so here are my Christmas Dinner traditions.

As many of you know, I’m originally from Peru so my Christmas traditions come from there. I have been in the UK for about 12 years now, and away from Peru for 13 years. Before this, all my Christmas dinners were in Peru.

What I tend to do is trying to combine my Peruvian traditions with the UK traditions so both my girls experience a little bit of both. Because of the long distance and the cost of travelling, we have not spent Christmas in Peru for several years. I think we have been there for Christmas only once and just with my eldest daughter.

For that reason, we have been trying to recreate my Peruvian Christmas Dinner at home. For those of you that didn’t know, in Peru, we celebrate Christmas on 24th December (Christmas Eve) and we have our dinner in the evening. This is something that I try to implement into our Christmas traditions every year.

What makes it traditional is that we eat on Christmas Eve and we only eat these dishes on that day. Because this is not a tradition in the UK, this has become our special tradition for my immediate family. My girls now know that this is how we celebrate Christmas in Peru and we try to make Christmas Eve and even more special night for them.

For me, what makes my Christmas meal special is that it reminds me of my home in Peru. As I mentioned before, we can’t travel there every year, so this meal on Christmas Eve is my way of keeping me close to my family in Peru despite being miles away.

Our Christmas Eve Dinner

For our Christmas Eve dinner, we have 4 dishes for our main dinner together with panettone and hot chocolate as a dessert. For Christmas dinner we eat:

• Potato Salad (potato, bacon and mayonnaise)
• Asparagus Souffle (main ingredients: asparagus, milk, parmesan, eggs, butter, chicken cube)
• Turkey (injected with Pisco)
• Turkey Filling (main ingredients: minced chicken, minced beef, ham, raisins, olives, nuts, bread loaf, eggs)

My Christmas meal is a tradition from my mum’s side. We have eaten the same dishes every year since I can remember. I’m always looking forward to eating them. We don’t prepare these dishes for any other occasion during the year so we really look forward to them on Christmas Eve.

Favourite part of my Christmas dinner 

My favourite part of our Christmas dinner is the potato salad mixed with the applesauce. I love the sweet and sour flavour that you get by combining them. Also, I love the panettone and hot chocolate drink that we have after. It is really lovely.

It is interesting to mention that even though all these dishes that we eat back home in Peru are Peruvian, you would expect me to cook them but the truth is that I don’t cook them. It is actually Nick who prepares them with my supervision. He usually cooks At home so he enjoys making these dishes. He finds this very interesting and loves the idea of learning how we do it in Peru.

I really love spending Christmas Eve together, especially with Nick and the girls. It is definitely a special moment for all of us. We love having this tradition, I hope its something my girls will continue to enjoy when they are older!

What are your Christmas traditions? What do you eat for Christmas?  When and how do you celebrate it?

*Disclosure: Collaborative post

Thanks for stopping by,

Love you all ❤️

Franca  💋

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