FOOD!
Holidays are about different things for different people.
For our family, a big part of most holidays is the FOOD! (For my family growing up it was about food and booze, but that's another story...)
This year for New Year's Eve the Hubby and I cooked several of the dishes that his mother has been making for New Year's for at least the last 20 years.
The main dish, the main attraction (which took much of the day to prepare)...
Paella. It's a lot of work, but totally worth it. And it makes great breakfast food the next day. I told the Hubby when we were done that we weren't waiting a whole year to do this again.
Another important New Year's Eve tradition...
Vasilopita. It's a Greek bread (I know, the Hubby is Italian and Portuguese and we had Spanish and Greek food, but close enough). The fun thing is you bake a penny in the loaf and cut the bread at the stroke of midnight. The pieces are handed out by descending order of age, and whoever gets the penny is supposed to get a year of good luck. We did the cutting at midnight eastern time (with a number of small children around there was no way we were going to do it at midnight) and the younger child of our dinner guests got the penny. She was thrilled.
We cooked a lot of special foods for Christmas Eve as well, but I don't have any pictures. I was too excited/tired/sick to think about much besides getting food on the table.
This is the second year that we have stayed home for the holidays, and it was fun to start to adapt the old extended family traditions to suit the needs of our nuclear family. It's definitely an ongoing process, but one that we will continue to enjoy!
For our family, a big part of most holidays is the FOOD! (For my family growing up it was about food and booze, but that's another story...)
This year for New Year's Eve the Hubby and I cooked several of the dishes that his mother has been making for New Year's for at least the last 20 years.
The main dish, the main attraction (which took much of the day to prepare)...
Paella. It's a lot of work, but totally worth it. And it makes great breakfast food the next day. I told the Hubby when we were done that we weren't waiting a whole year to do this again.
Another important New Year's Eve tradition...
Vasilopita. It's a Greek bread (I know, the Hubby is Italian and Portuguese and we had Spanish and Greek food, but close enough). The fun thing is you bake a penny in the loaf and cut the bread at the stroke of midnight. The pieces are handed out by descending order of age, and whoever gets the penny is supposed to get a year of good luck. We did the cutting at midnight eastern time (with a number of small children around there was no way we were going to do it at midnight) and the younger child of our dinner guests got the penny. She was thrilled.
We cooked a lot of special foods for Christmas Eve as well, but I don't have any pictures. I was too excited/tired/sick to think about much besides getting food on the table.
This is the second year that we have stayed home for the holidays, and it was fun to start to adapt the old extended family traditions to suit the needs of our nuclear family. It's definitely an ongoing process, but one that we will continue to enjoy!
2 Comments:
Y'know, anytime you want to make paella, I'll come and help you eat it! Yummy, yummy....
-Kathy in San Jose
That is soooo cool! I like that you make non traditional foods AND that you both create them together :)
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