When it comes to Christmas traditions, the Brits are on top of this festive season. Britain's traditions are time-honoured and intimate. While things were different due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, my very first British traditional Christmas happened to be such cosy and special time with my family-in-laws.
Britain is home to some of the best Christmas traditions in the world as the Brits celebrate it quite differently. While the Europeans celebrate with traditions which have been in place for centuries, the Americans celebrate in many different ways according to household, the British have their own exciting and unique itinerary.
Christmas decoration is adequate, simple with meticulous care
It's not "go big or go home" or "my horse is bigger than your horse" competition when it comes to Christmas decoration in Britain. If the Americans enjoy going wild with external Christmas decoration, the British will just put on some fairy lights in the garden and a Christmas wreath on the main door. The Brits prefer keeping it decent from the outside but pay more attention to the inside and create a homely atmosphere with a lovely personal touch. It's understandable when most of British will spend Christmas time at home due to rainy, wet and cold winter weather outside, so the indoor decoration plays an important role. Also, it's money-saving and smart-consuming.
First thing first - Christmas tree decoration. The Brits love the smell of a real Christmas pine tree, so they usually go for tree picking at this time of the year. It can be considered as a Christmas tree hunting mission that they spend time going to different tree farms to look around and compare the prices. The mission is to buy the most suitable tree regarding the size, shape and smell with a good price. You've got to count the pennies, especially at Christmas, when there's a long list of Christmas gifts, cards, foods, decorations to spend; therefore, a penny saved is a penny earned.
A traditional Victorian house or cottage in Britain was designed with a fireplace and a chimney. This is absolutely one of my favourite things in the winter; sitting by an open fire, feeling cosy with the smell of burning logs, having a cup of tea with mince pies and chatting the night away with family.
Grandad's Garden blooms in winter
My father-in-law is a skilful gardener. His garden is beautifully taken care of with so much love for nature. Every flower has a lovely story and that makes Grandad's Garden special like a fairy tale. He also has a bird feeder and a community of birds making his garden as their homes. There are sparrows, blue tits, robins and blackbirds hanging around and singing every morning.
I like spending time in his garden admiring the plants and flowers he grows and enjoying the peace it gives. I couldn't remember all the names of flowers, but I do recognise from their looks and smells. I will surely try to become better at memorising flower names on my next visit. It was a very cold winter weather to do gardening outside. Normally, you will prune all the plants and flowers at this time of the year, wait for them to grow and bloom when the spring comes bringing some sunshine.
However, some of the flowers in Grandad's Garden were blooming despite the harsh weather. I was in his garden and took some nice photos of them to share with you.
British traditional Christmas foods
Besides the famous mince pies, I've got a chance to know and taste other traditional cakes such as Christmas cake and Christmas pudding. They're dried fruit cakes, but Christmas pudding is an alcoholic one which contains Port wine to enhance your taste buds with a strong finishing touch.
When you start preparing the Christmas cake two weeks earlier, you'll know that's when Christmas coming. My father-in-law has his special recipe for Christmas cake and every year he enjoys making it. After baking the cake, he covered the cake with melted marmalade, then, a layer of icing. The final touch comes with some small and lovely decorations on top.
Not only cakes and pastries bring the excitement to Christmas traditions in Britain, but also other cosy homemade traditional foods fulfil the whole Christmas spirit. This is the similarity between the Christmas holiday in Britain and the Tet holiday in Vietnam; when everybody comes home to celebrate the festive season with family and friends, to feel pampered again in mother's love and mother's foods.
I loved being in the kitchen with my parents-in-law because I could learn so many things about British foods as well as Western foods in general through every dish my mother-in-law made. Also, chatting and singing Christmas songs in the kitchen with them was a great joy. We celebrated Christmas Eve with fresh lobsters and prawns straight from the sea, because where my parents-in-law live is a lovely small town by the sea of North Devon, called Ilfracombe. Therefore, we're spoiled with fresh lobsters, prawns and other kinds of seafood.
We had prawn avocado salad for lunch and lobster roll with freshly cooked prawns and chips for dinner. Honestly, I have never tasted such delicious, meaty and juicy lobsters like that before. My mother-in-law made the best chips as a side dish and I couldn't stop eating it. McDonald's chips surely cannot compare to her chips.
In Britain, Christmas Eve dinner is quite a light dinner as people will generally go out to join church services with family and meet up some old friends for a snack and drink. However, as per Covid-19 restrictions, all pubs were closed and everybody could not mix households; therefore, the only way to catch up with friends and family relatives was through video calls or messages. It was quite a different and sad picture of Christmas but we all need to stay alert in the fight against Coronavirus.
Here comes Christmas Day - 25th of December!
As British traditions, everybody will wake up, have breakfast and head straight to the Christmas tree to open presents, read out loud Christmas cards and send each other lots of thanks, hugs and kisses. It's such a cosy homely atmosphere when the whole family gather next to the fireplace, under the Christmas tree altogether with children and pets.
Then, my mother-in-law started making a traditional Christmas Day feast with roasted turkey stuffed with minced pork and herbs, pigs in the blankets (pork sausages wrapped around with bacon), honey roasted ham, roasted potatoes, parsnips, brussels sprouts and melted cheese cauliflower. What a feast that only a mother can do! Looking at my mother-in-law cooking for the family made me miss my own mother in Vietnam. I feel so lucky to have both mothers with such hearts of gold who enjoy taking care of family through her delicious meals and the love in her eyes.
We all stayed in the kitchen cooking, helping each other, watching old movies on TV and looking at old pictures. It was such a good family bonding time to share stories and remember all the good memories.
The leftover turkey made its way to different dishes on Boxing Day with salad and soup; then, finished up in a turkey baguette on Bank Holiday made by my father-in-law.
Boxing Day is referred to as the British Black Friday
It's after-Christmas sale day when the Brits go crazy with shopping. However, as all shops were closed, people had to do Boxing Day shopping online.
Boxing Day also has a rich cultural history in Great Britain. Originating in the mid-1600s, the day was traditionally a day off for servants. On this day, servants would receive a "Christmas Box" as a gift from their master. The servants would return home on Boxing Day to give "Christmas Boxes" to their families.
Conclusion
My husband and I were very lucky to be able to make it home to England for Christmas and New Year Eve with our family. We spent more than a month in England during the Christmas lockdown. It was my very first British traditional Christmas and absolutely a memorable one with my family-in-law. Hopefully, we could have many more Christmases and New Year Eves together in England, but not under lockdown anymore.
Comments