The 24th is the New 25th

This year my life and mind have been expanded culturally, not only to American customs, but to to that of other European countries also. Although other European countries seem to be culturally closer to us than they are to America there are still some major differences I have been shamefully oblivious to my whole life. One of those things is the celebration of Christmas Day.

It was a few weeks before we left for Chicago in a casual conversation about Christmas day dinner (its also about food with me) that I discovered not everyone celebrates on the 25th, in fact a lot of European countries celebrate on the evening of the 24th. So in an effort to compromise we decided to give presents on the morning of the 25th and have Christmas dinner consisting of traditional dishes from each of the five countries we represented on the 24th around 8pm, the result was this:

My contribution to the feast was cauliflower cheese and roast potatoes! The roast carrots and smoked ham represented New Zealands, the Swedish meatballs with lingonberries and eggs were provided by the Swedes (of course), mini sausages from Austria and the Chicken I believe was generic. Our starter, which unfortunately I don't have a photo of, was a traditional Spanish cold soup with just about every vegetable you can imagine blended together with vinegar - it was delicious. Lindor chocolate was the obvious chose of desert, not that I could have stuff anything else in my stomach if I tried.

I must say it felt slightly strange not having this meal to look forward to after opening our presents but you have to try everything once!
                                                                          However. One thing I could not get my head around is if you open your presents on the evening of the 24th after being in the house all day whilst mummy and daddy prepare a huge feast how does Santa get down the chimney to leave your presents without you noticing? Quite a large flaw in the plan if I dare to say it. When I proposed this question the answer was pretty simple really - magic. 


Seen as we were just about the cheesiest bunch of international tourists making Christmas our own little was we just had to throw in some extra cheese in the form of CHRISTMAS JUMPERS!
We're just the cutest.

Once we were quite overwhelmed by our food comas we proceeded to vegetable on the sofa and watch a special hour long Christmas episode of Donald Duck.. In Swedish.. Without subtitles. Now that is being cultured. Apparently slightly different variations of this movie are aired in Sweden every Christmas Eve, most families will even plan their meal around watching it.

And that my friends was my European Christmas in America.