So much of Christmas is shared joyously across the continents – like Mariah Carey, Rudolph the reindeer and the panic of last-minute shopping. But so much more is wrapped up in the cultures of each country, each region, each family, and even each household.
Here, members of the Luxembourg Times team give a glimpse into what makes them feel glowy and warm during the cold and dark of December.
Duncan – Real candles and popcorn garlands
Being an international family, my childhood Christmases were a mélange of cultural traditions from Germany, England, the United States and Hungary.
Much to the consternation of my English father, my German-born mother insisted that we have real candles on our Christmas tree at home. My memory of the flickering flames and my dad nervously eying the bucket of sand that he and his younger brother had placed in a corner of the living room stays with me to this day.
We spent most Christmases with that uncle and his American wife and their daughters, alternating every year between their home and ours. My aunt would drape garlands of popcorn and cranberries around their tree, which I thought was a clever alternative decoration (though I regretted the time I succumbed to the temptation to nibble on what I soon discovered was stale popcorn).
Being of Hungarian descent, my aunt, like my Mum, had a tradition of opening the presents over a long evening of drinks and food on Christmas Eve. Getting toys a day earlier than my English classmates felt like a big win as a young child.
We now divide the gift-giving over Christmas Eve (with whisky Macs in hand) and Christmas Day morning (when we laze about in PJs and sip on Buck’s Fizz). These days, we forgo the real candles on the tree. That’s a tradition our insurer would certainly frown upon.
Cordula – Coming home to Luxembourg
Cordula has family who live abroad, but they all descend on the Grand Duchy every other Christmas © Photo credit: Marc Wilwert
Christmas is a family affair. As we are spread far and wide, every two years we gather in Luxembourg, “at home”, to celebrate. With nieces and nephews, we have become a big family, but there’s always room for one more, and we have over the years welcomed a few Christmas orphans – university friends who found themselves alone over the holidays, a cousin on an exchange programme nearby.
In my mother’s family, it was customary to keep an empty table setting for anyone who might find themselves in need on Christmas Eve, and some of that tradition has lived on.
We bake up a storm in the run-up to the holidays. There’s a list of must-see festive films, trips to the Christmas markets, decorating the tree. The holidays are one long, warm hug.
The main event is Christmas Eve, with a big dinner and presents. The menu changes, but always involves some kind of sumptuous roast. Before we get to unwrap our gifts, everyone must either recite a poem, sing a song or perform some other kind of trick (one of my brothers once got away with solving a Rubik’s cube in under a minute).
More than anything, Christmas is a much-treasured occasion to spend time with each other. We talk in our family WhatsApp group on an almost daily basis. But doing so in our mother’s home, with a glass of wine in hand after too much food, under the warm glow of the Christmas lights, makes it all the more special.
From my family to yours, happy holidays!
Lucrezia – Granny’s gambling frenzy
Tombola! © Photo credit: Shutterstock
In most parts of Italy, the biggest event of the Christmas holidays is the cenone: the Christmas Eve dinner.
Preparation for the cenone is the most stressful thing all year. Italian grandmothers and mothers train for it like Olympians. Menus and customs vary wildly from north to south, as do their solemnity and length. In my family, my mother sets a different table every year, ready to host more appetisers than you could ever admit out loud: both the most delicious nibbles you’ll ever have and your greatest culinary regret. No matter how long you wait before the next course, nothing will help you digest it all in time.
After the kids are in bed dreaming of Santa, the grown-ups finally settle for the moment every gambling addict in the room has been waiting for. The moment that can make or break every family: tombola.
A folkloric, very Italian, version of bingo that can make you either the richest or the poorest person in the family for the evening. Everyone puts money in the pot, hoping to walk away with it all. The best arguments, without fail, happen on this symbolic day of unity, affection and love. Oh, the magic of Christmas!
In my family, like in every Southern family, when midnight strikes, we have maybe just about digested the second course. Sleepy, a little resentful, (usually because the same person always wins at tombola), we need to keep going: there’s still dried fruit, desserts, panettone, pandoro, limoncello… the list goes on. You can’t back down or else Nonna will judge you.
Invariably, someone whose cognitive abilities are still intact yells, “It’s midnight! Buon Natale!” and suddenly, that giant stone in your stomach vanishes, and all that matters is the giving and receiving of presents and figuring out whether you’ve been naughty or nice this year.
Kate – Bad rom-coms and chocolate for breakfast
This person clearly likes chocolate. Kate is also partial to a chunk or two © Photo credit: Shutterstock
I start my December as I mean to go on: with chocolate for breakfast, from my Advent calendar. Christmas drinks like Baileys and mulled wine are introduced into my evenings and social engagements for the month.
I also have a list of films I watch, usually topped by The Holiday and Love Actually, and of course all of the Harry Potter films. I also watch as many bad rom-coms from the Hallmark Channel as possible.
Festive food throughout the month is of course the staple. Examples include anything with ginger or cinnamon.
On Christmas Day we have a festive lunch with all the trimmings except we swap out Turkey for a vegetarian main such as a nut roast.
Sarita – Fruit peelings and flat-pack furniture
Sarita enjoys watching Christmas movies. She also dedicated half her allotted space in this article to the things she does not enjoy about Christmas © Photo credit: Shutterstock
What says Christmas to me? The smell of fresh pine from a real tree. My first glass of hot spiced wine. Decorating the tree whilst listening to cheesy festive songs, and watching Love Actually followed by Nativity – two favourite festive films.
What does not say Christmas? Mixed peel soaked in alcohol – a.k.a. mince pies, Christmas pudding or Christmas cake. Ready-to-assemble gingerbread houses from Ikea, which are harder to construct than their flat-pack furniture. And discovering that far too many of my kids’ friends got Gucci handbags from Santa.
Heledd – Welsh warmth
Here is a little insight into Christmas traditions in Wales, some I have held on to, and some I have (gladly) thrown away.
Growing up in Wales, I was surrounded by Mariah Carey on repeat, Christmas jumpers (the more ridiculous, the better) and homes drowning in illuminated snowmen and Father Christmases.
Christmas traditions included a night out with friends on the evening of the 24th, turkey and mince pies on the 25th, and a “he’s behind you” pantomime on the 26th.
At some point between Christmas and New Year’s Day, hordes of people would head down to the beach for a dip in the numbingly cold sea, many dressed as Santa Claus (see above).
By now, I’m a converted Christmas fusionist, swapping mince pies for a raclette, putting up minimalistic (and easy-to-pack-away) decorations, but always making sure there’s still space for Mariah Carey.
Emery – Sauerkraut, a goat and a rented tree
Nothing says Christmas quite like the German football club FC Köln and its goat mascott © Photo credit: FC Köln
My wife always pulls out her gaudy sweater from Cologne FC and their mascot (her second-favourite animal), a goat.
If we are at home in Luxembourg, we rent a Christmas tree. It gets delivered about a week before Christmas and picked up again after New Year. It then goes back into the ground of the garden centre that runs the programme. We may host dinner, or we may join friends at their home.
If we are with my family in the US, we celebrate our Hungarian heritage by starting the holiday meal with a hearty soup containing sauerkraut, mushrooms and kielbasa sausage (Kolbász in Hungarian) in a sour, creamy base.
We sing a Hungarian song of the angels arriving to honour the newborn babe in the manger. We greet every other member present. Then we hand out gifts.
Alex – It’s serious until it isn’t
I like to think of myself as being enamoured of adventure and the unexpected. But that extends only to eleven months of the year. December comes with a needlessly strict set of self-imposed rules that starts with the requirement to watch specific predictable films (think Love Actually, Harry Potter, etc.). Christmas decorations go up on the first Sunday of Advent, as well as Christmas themed soap, kitchen roll, meals and more.
And let’s not forget the Christmas socks. I don’t know how it happened, but I somehow have more festive socks than ‘real’ ones. They are strictly worn for this one month of the year.
Rigidly sticking to traditions – even silly ones I made up – is one of the many aspects of Icelandic Christmas that I embrace, alongside the music (see a good example above), malt og appelsín, laufabrauð and the ubiquitously pan-Nordic Advent candle wreath.
Casually pretending it was never important and chilling out with another Baileys when rigid plans inevitably go awry, meanwhile, is one of the British aspects I enjoy most (alongside mince pies and Christmas crackers).
However you celebrate Christmas (if you do at all), we here at the Luxembourg Times wish you love, laughter and a very relaxing, peaceful and cosy end to 2025!