Holiday Traditions – Christmukah Edition

Coming from two different backgrounds, we knew that we’d be meshing and combining holiday traditions. Before we moved in together, we were pretty blessed with our families being very welcoming and including us in their holiday traditions. This went for every holiday, not just Christmas and Hanukkah. For those that don’t know, my husband is Jewish and I am Catholic/Christian. Neither of us is religious.

Who remembers “The OC” and Christmukah? Yeah, just like that except a little less dramatic 😉 

I have been welcome at every Hanukkah celebration, and Jason has been welcome at every Christmas Eve/Christmas day celebrations with my family. When we moved in together, we were able to create our own traditions, in addition to the ones we already had. Now, those traditions do still include celebrations with our family, but also some of our own.

Christmas is my favourite holiday of the year. It is a holiday that has always consisted of family time, food, and endless laughs. There is just something about a Christmas tree that brings a special kind of warmth in such a dark month. Literally, since right before Christmas is the shortest day of the year, and it is constantly raining here in Vancouver!

Hanukkah and Christmas sometimes overlap each other, and sometimes Hanukkah is super early. Only one time has a Hanukkah dinner been suggested on December 24th …our reasons for saying no (along with my brother-in-law’s household) were pretty solid. I don’t believe my father-in-law will ever live that down.

However, now that my parents have moved out of the country, December 24th is a little different and is something we’ve made our own.

Our holiday traditions

The holidays bring upon a level of busy, and little rest or downtime, but worth every minute. I’ll sleep it all off in January!

• Christmas tree and Hanukkah decorations come out on December 1st. If Hanukkah begins in November, then those decorations come out just before the first night.
• Christmas baking begins in December. The amount of shortbread consumed between December 1st and December 31st can be insane, but so delicious.
  • Peppermint brownies
  • Shortbread cookies
  • Nanaimo Bars
  • Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
  • Sugar Cookies
• While Hanukkah is eight nights, we do one big family celebration. It’s difficult enough to get everyone’s schedule in place for one night, let alone eight!
  • We are always in charge of Latkes.
    • Fun fact: we were once in charge of the jelly doughnuts, but it was after Hanukkah was over so jelly doughnuts were scarce. We showed up with different doughnuts, and we were immediately fired and put back on Latke duty. I don’t remember why we were on doughnut duty …but it was a first and last. 
  • We light the candles every night.
• My aunt, uncle, grandma and cousins all live outside of the city. They come into the city and we do a family afternoon/evening.
  • Robson Square ice skating. We have one outdoor ice rink and we lace-up skates and make fools of ourselves skating. OK so Jason doesn’t since he plays hockey, but I definitely do. You’d never know I ice skated as a child.
  • Dinner at Red Robin – we have literally done this since we were little kids.
  • Stanley Park Bright Nights [Christmas Train]. This is a tradition that will, unfortunately, be missed this year. Oh, 2020. If you’ve never done this, and you live within Metro Vancouver, I would highly suggest making this something you visit. Entrance to the lights is by donation; the train is an additional paid ticket. Totes worth it.
• Vancouver Christmas market. Food, beer, and small business market; count us in! Definitely a tradition that I will miss this year.

Christmas Eve aka Jewish Christmas

• • We stuff each other’s stockings, and the dogs stocking. If my sister and her boyfriend are in town, we stuff theirs as well.
  • Takeout time! Typically sushi or Chinese food. We’ve also done Thai. This is a non-negotiable tradition. Friends are always welcome to join, but it’s always Asian food takeout. Don’t even try to change my mind.
  • Christmas movies. Solid opportunity to watch Home Alone. Jason has Die Hard on the must-watch list this year. Unpopular opinion: just because it’s a Christmas party, doesn’t make it a Christmas movie, but I digress. It’s a good movie, and that’s all that matters.

Christmas Morning

• • Eggnog lattes and we open up our stockings. This is Brie’s favourite thing – ripping apart presents. She is a fan of shredding wrapping paper and tissue paper! We don’t always do presents for each other, but if we do, then we do this after the stockings.
  • Special breakfast. Eggs benedict, french toast, pancakes, waffles – something different for us.
  • Pack up the car and head to my aunt’s house for the rest of the Christmas celebrations

Christmas Afternoon/Evening

• • Snacks galore. We always have veggies, cheese and crackers, chips, Christmas treats and your drink(s) of choice.
  • Traditional Christmas dinner. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mashed yams, Brussel sprouts, veggies, cheesy cauliflower, and of course gravy and cranberry sauce. This is not a day to count any kind of calories – intuitive eating!
    • Fun fact: I put a Brussel sprout on my uncle’s plate a few years ago, and he went to throw it back on my plate, and it almost landed in my wine. It did land in my mashed potatoes though. 
  • After dinner, we start opening presents.
  • This is where things get seriously crazy. We’re a pretty competitive family and we play a game where we unwrap a big saran ball with small presents, while someone rolls a dice to get doubles so that they can steal the ball. I’m not kidding when I say we’re competitive. There’s a lot of screaming and pulling the saran ball from people’s hands. This is definitely a family fave tradition from here on out.
  • Dessert – just in case you hadn’t had enough food – and jam jams.
  • After midnight, and only after midnight, we watch Titanic. I have no idea how this tradition started, but we’re well into it now, and there’s no turning back. Sometimes we turn it into a drinking game. My aunt always falls asleep although I am never quite sure how she sleeps through it because we play it loud. LOUD.
  • Sometime around 4 am usually, we go to sleep for a few hours. We always spend the night.

Boxing Day

• • We always used to go Boxing Day shopping, but we’ve definitely toned it down in recent years.
  • Waffles and strawberries, with eggs and bacon for breakfast. Really, we say breakfast, but it is more like brunch. Sometimes lunch!
  • We do nothing but laze about and graze on leftovers. World Juniors Hockey is usually on, so that’s on in the background
  • Dinner consists of turkey buns. Essentially, your own creation, with the Christmas dinner leftovers, all stuffed into a bun. Think about Ross’s leftover Thanksgiving turkey sandwich from Friends.

I also have a strict rule which means all Christmukah decor comes down no later than January 1st. Even if I am hungover and it takes me all darn day, that tree is coming down. 

COVID Christmukah

Obviously, for 2020, most of these traditions will not be the same and while it is disappointing, I would rather keep everyone safe by staying apart so we can all be together next Christmas. We survived virtual Easter, and we did an outdoors Thanksgiving in October before more restrictions came into place.

All our decor is up and it’s feeling very festive in this condo of ours.

Hanukkah this year is going ahead, but virtually. We’re still making latkes and my mother-in-law is making dinner for everyone and splitting into packages that my father-in-law will drop off to everyone, and we’ll all hang out virtually. Our suggestion that we all cook our own meals was immediately shot down; bless my mother-in-law.

Christmas with my family looks more and more unlikely with every passing day. We live in the Vancouver Coastal Health region and they are in the Fraser Health region, and travel outside of your region is not recommended. I will still make a turkey dinner if we cannot gather in person, and we can all celebrate virtually.

Jewish Christmas on the 24th will still go ahead. We have been fans of ordering take-out from local restaurants throughout this entire pandemic, and that won’t change on Christmas eve. It will however just be us unless my sister and her partner cannot go back to Saskatchewan for Christmas.

While it absolutely and 100% sucks that this holiday season is not normal and that we can’t do all the things we would normally do, this too shall pass. And you know what? This will make next year’s holiday season even better.

What are some traditions you have (in a normal year) for the holiday season?