My First Time Celebrating Christmas!
Posted on February 1, 2022
I know it’s February but it’s never too late to talk about Christmas. And it IS important to talk about Christmas because I just had my first official Christmas during the winter break! I say “official” because I’m from Hong Kong and although we do hang Christmas lights, have Christmas dinner and exchange gifts sometimes, we don’t follow closely with the western tradition. In other words, we celebrate this festive season in the Eastern way. I remember when I was little, we would have spaghetti, chicken wings and spring rolls on Christmas night which is quite different from a “proper” Christmas dinner.
But during the winter break, I was lucky enough to spend some time with my friend Maya and her family. I finally got to see how people in the west celebrate this wintery holiday and experience some of the activities myself. Let’s rate the activities and food I had during this big holiday! (because why not?!)
Christmas market 3/5⭐️
Image Credit: Taken by my friend Faye
First up, we have the Christmas market! I went to the Distillery Winter Village with some of my friends right before winter break and to be honest, I wasn’t having my best time there. But let me talk about the good things first. What I liked the most about this market is the festive decoration. Christmas lights were everywhere, floating in the snowy air like fairies, which were so enchanting that they made me believe for a moment all the Christmas tales are real. There’re also some boutiques that sold cool stuff. But when you look at the price tags, you’re immediately pulled out of the fantasy back to the real commercial world. And when you take a moment to look around you, you’d realise that you’re not alone with Santa or the Grinch but clustered with a bunch of people freezing in the snow. That being said, I give a solid 3 out of 5 stars.
Stockings 5/5⭐️
Image Credit: Pinterest
When I woke up in the morning of Christmas day and went down to the living room, I saw a big puffy red sock hanging from the mantelpiece. That’s when I realised that Maya’s parents had kindly prepared a stocking for me and that it is something people actually do instead of some made-up tradition that I’d seen from a cartoon when I was a little kid. The stocking was stuffed with lots of goods and I couldn’t thank Maya and her parents enough! One thing I found interesting about stockings is that people put a clementine at the toe for good luck which is somehow similar to a tradition during Chinese New Year where people would place a small clementine tree or mandarin orange tree at the porch because mandarin orange in Cantonese has the same pronunciation as the word Luck.
Christmas dinner 4/5⭐️
Image Credit: Pinterest
No more spaghetti, chicken wings and spring rolls! We’re having the “proper” western Christmas dinner with turkey, mashed potato with gravy and stuffing this year! It was my first time having stuffing and I was told that it’s made with bread and some herbs. Sounds simple enough. I would usually tell people that I don’t like eating soggy fries or bread but somehow I found the stuffing not bad at all. It went very well with all other food on the plate and filled me up just about right.
Watching Christmas movie with family 3/5⭐️
Image Credit: Pinterest
After having dinner, we all sat on the couch and spent some cozy movie time together. We watched The Holiday and the classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I have to say Christmas movies aren’t really my thing. They are really cheesy and I can’t believe The Holiday is more cheesy than the Grinch even though I was very confused the whole time I was watching the Grinch. But! I still liked the message about family and union behind these Christmas movies and I found them really heartwarming and cute at the end.
Hodge-podge of miniature food 5/5⭐️
Image Credit: Pinterest
This might be more of a Maya’s family tradition but on boxing day, we had a bunch of different food in small sizes for dinner, which Maya called hodge-podge. There are mini eggs and bacon pies, mini sausage rolls, slices of small bread and cheese etc. All these looked so simple but they’re so good! My favourite, and so is Maya’s, is the sausage rolls. There’s something magical about sausages plus puff pastry that I just can’t explain how amazing it tastes. I would give it a 6-star but that’s not possible so I’ll give it a 5.
