Spain, by Ana Palenciano

How and when do you celebrate Christmas?
On Christmas Eve most people in Spain go to Midnight Mass or ‘La Misa Del Gallo’ (The Mass of the Rooster). It is called this because a rooster is supposed to have crowed the night that Jesus was born. Most families eat their main Christmas meal on Christmas Eve before the service.

December 28th is ‘Día de los santos inocentes’ or ‘Day of the Innocent Saints’, when people try to trick each other into believing silly stories and jokes. Newspapers and TV stations also run silly stories. If you trick someone, you can call them ‘Inocente, inocente’ which means ‘naïve’, ‘silly’.

New Year’s Eve is called ‘Nochevieja’ or ‘The Old Night’ in Spain, and one special tradition is that you eat 12 grapes with the 12 strokes of the clock at Midnight. Each grape represents a month of the coming year, so if you eat the twelve grapes, you are said to be lucky in the New Year.

Apart from Christmas, there is another festival called Epiphany or King’s Day, which is celebrated on 6th January. This is the twelfth night after Christmas. In Spanish, Epiphany is called ‘Fiesta de Los tres Reyes Mages’: in English this means ‘The festival of the three Magic Kings’.  Some big towns and cities have Epiphany Parades (‘cabalgatas’) with each King having a big float that is shaped like a camel. Sometimes there are also real camels in the parade.

What’s on the menu? 
Normally, what’s eaten on Christmas Eve depends on the region you’re celebrating in – but we usually eat too much! The traditional Spanish Christmas dinner is ‘Pavo Trufado de Navidad’, which is Turkey stuffed with truffles (the mushrooms, not the chocolate ones!). If you live by the sea, the most popular meal for Christmas Eve and for Christmas Day is seafood – gigantic crabs, lobster, razor clams… yum. In our house (Malaga, by the sea) we eat lots of proper seafood (crabs, lobster, langoustines, etc). We also have lots of nibbles to start with and my mum always makes a superb chicken soup for the kids, with little fine pasta and Spanish ham, which they adore – and they then have the seafood too! Seafood is very popular that night – but other families will eat game. Something we all eat throughout Christmas is ‘turron’ – nougat sweet with almonds and a special cake called ‘Roscón’ is eaten at Epiphany. Roscón means ‘ring-shaped roll’. It is very doughy and is bought from a bakery on Epiphany morning. Roscón can be filled with cream or chocolate and contain a little gift.

Are there party games or too much telly? 
Lots of tacky telly – great entertainment!! But then we all go for walks by the sea and eat ice cream or have a coffee and enjoy the sunshine while the kids let off steam. Most families would go out ‘de paseo’ – whether you live by the sea or not. It’s a great way to let all that food go down and work off some of the calories!

What are the arguments at home usually about over Christmas?
Who’s cooking. Who’s not cooking. Who’s in charge. Who’s not in charge. Who’s drank all the beer. Who’s having the kids. Who’s having the siesta. Isn’t it the same all over the world?

What’s the best thing about your Christmas?
Seeing my family

And the worst?
Leaving them again! 

Holland, by Lisette Van Diepen

How and when do you celebrate Christmas?
Here’s the major difference between Holland and the rest of the world. Our Santa Claus is called Sinterklaas and he arrives in Holland early December by boat from Spain. Before his arrival on the 5th, the children leave presents (letters and drawings for Sinterklaas, food such as carrots for his horse) in their shoes, placed in front of the chimney.  They then sing special songs through the chimney and hope Sinterklaas has heard them.  During the night, Sinterklaas goes from one roof to the next on his horse and he obviously rewards all the good kids.

For grown-ups, this is also a major party, as on the night of the 5th, we get together and give each other presents.  Weeks in advance we have drawn names out of a hat, and we have to surprise the grown-ups with poems and hand made ‘surprises’ too.
Although the Christmas celebration is getting more and more attention and is gaining in popularity in Holland, the Sinterklaas tradition is a very strong one.

Christmas starts with going to church on Christmas Eve, then a light meal afterwards (Currant bread with butter, tea and coffee).  And then the 25th and the 26th are the usual family days.  You spend time together (one day with your own family, the next with your in-laws), and have a dinner around 5ish pm.

What’s on the menu?
I am a lucky girl in that my husband is a complete foodie.  I have not cooked a single day since I met him seven years ago.   He loves to go overboard on Christmas day, so he spends weeks in advance planning and looking forward to it.  As he never cooks me the same thing twice unless I specifically ask him to, I have never ever had the same thing for Christmas lunch.   If I had to mention a traditional Christmas food, it would be the ‘Courmetten’ tradition, where every person on the table has his or her own little pan on a tiny cooker.  On the table are small portions of cut vegetables, meat, eggs etc., and everyone can produce their own little dinner plate.

What accessories are involved?
Slowly but steadily the Dutch are going overboard on this. The recession will not stop us and so we go for massive trees, possibly more than one,  a miniature stall with baby Jesus and the shepherds, Maria and the three kings, the animals etc.  Then there are the starry lights in front of the window, the spray-on snow and most popular, the immense number of lights outside. Also popular is to try and get access to British or American things that are not our tradition as yet – so I always manage to get some fabulous Christmas crackers from the UK for the dinner table. Obviously we claim that all of these decorations are to bring ‘light’ in darker days (to make the house cosy, which is a Dutch word).

Are there party games or too much telly?
Both.  Some very old-fashioned Dutch games are played – lots of playing cards, and ‘sjoelbakken’, which is a board for sliding discs at four gates, and ‘the royal game of goose’.  And there are lots and lots of movies on, so there is too much TV too.

What are the arguments at home usually about over Christmas?
I guess this is the same everywhere…??  Intrusive mothers-in-law, Dad farting during dinner, jealousy over my sister’s gorgeous boyfriend, etc.  Spending too much time with family is asking for trouble, in my case.

What’s the best thing about your Christmas?
The fact that you can change and start up your own Christmas traditions every year.  You can decide to give it a miss and choose to go away or you can decide to ignore it even, if you wish. Around Christmas I tend to evaluate my year a bit and  I feel blessed with the fact that my loved ones are healthy and happy.

And the worst?
The idea of the gigantic amounts of food we end up throwing away.  The amount of money spent on stupid presents that will be ignored.  

France, by Charlotte Benoit

How and when do you celebrate Christmas?
The big days are Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but there’s no big deal made about Boxing Day – it isn’t even a national holiday. Otherwise it’s much like the UK, with the family gathering on the 24th for the big day on the 25th, when the main meal is served.

The French don’t as a rule go in for the Christmas stocking hung up on the bed overnight. The strangest tradition in my family, though, is a weird variation on this – we all leave one of our shoes beside the tree at bedtime on the 24th, and when we get up on Christmas Day, it’s filled with presents, or they’re shoved next to it. Weird! And I have no idea if anyone else in France does that or if it’s just us.

What’s on the menu? 
Turkey isn’t the centrepiece of the meal, although it is usually poultry – in our family, a capon. French people have no real foodstuffs that are trotted out only at this time of year – no mince pies, for example. Instead, our menu will be the best of the best, real celebration food, but not necessarily with any Christmas associations. Starters would be oysters, there’d probably be foie gras, but no Christmas pudding and I’ve never seen custard on a French table! Instead we have chocolate log for pudding, or a Christmas cake.

Our Father Christmas is Le Père Noël, and he looks and dresses exactly like the UK version, and comes to the house at the same time too. We don’t leave anything out for him or the reindeer to eat and drink, I’m afraid – we’re French, we eat everything in the house before going to bed!

What accessories are involved ?
On Christmas morning we’ll gather at the tree, which is beautifully decorated, to open our presents. One small difference is that we never have a fairy on top of the tree, always a star. And I’ve never seen mistletoe above a door for stealing a kiss, it’s only ever used as a table decoration.

Are there party games or too much telly? 
We have party games and watch TV, just as they probably do everywhere, and our family arguments are probably about the same thing too - politics! We don’t tend to get as drunk at a French Christmas as they do in the UK, but not because there’s not a lot of drink around –we start with a Martini, whisky or Pastis aperitif, and have a different wine for every course. It’s more likely to be because the main Christmas Day meal goes on so long, and there’s so much eating at every step of the way, the alcohol gets soaked up. It’s not unusual for the family to sit at the table for six hours...last year I went off for an hour’s nap then came back and joined in!

What’s the best thing about your Christmas?
The food – that’s the best thing about a French Christmas.

And the worst?
The heavy feeling the next day, as a result of eating it all!

United Kingdom, by Lesley Jones

How and when do you celebrate Christmas?
If we have relatives staying who can watch the children, we go to church for the Watchnight Service in the lead up to midnight on 24th December. Father Christmas demands quality malt whisky and organic shortbread and this has been left by the fireplace with carrots for the reindeer for our return. He leaves wrapped presents in the living room and it looks like he stays for quite a while to polish off the booze.

Christmas Day in the UK is the big one. In our house it is a chaos of wrapping paper, camera flashes, test-driven toys and food. There’s usually a walk before lunch, with someone inevitably wearing a Santa hat. The rest of the day is family time with a huge meal, games and present swapping.

What’s on the menu?
In our house, it’s the favourite meal of the year as there are so many things we’d normally never eat. Top is ‘pigs in blankets’, baked pork sausages wrapped in bacon – there’s a fight for these. With the roast turkey we serve bread sauce, cranberry sauce with port, mounds of Brussels sprouts, roasted parsnips and every kind of vegetable and every kind of stuffing – apricot, sage and onion, pork and cranberry… Christmas pudding with brandy butter is a heavy fruit dessert doused in brandy and set alight, although we usually have a sherry trifle option for those who’d rather keep their eyebrows.

What accessories are involved?
We have a traditional real Christmas tree with ornaments and baubles that have been collected over the years, so it’s a real mish-mash of styles.  Our family tradition is to go to the flower market in Columbia Road in London to choose the tree. The children decorate it themselves so it’s usually a bit bare at the top! We also love fairy lights and usually drape them over picture frames and doorways. We always have a holly wreath for the front door and some outdoor lights in the tree in our front garden. Some of our neighbours have huge illuminated Santas climbing on their roofs but we try to be a bit more subtle!

Are there party games or too much telly?
Always too much telly – it’s compulsory to buy a TV listings magazine called the Radio Times and tick off all the things you might want to watch. But there’s lots of time for games too, usually Charades or Consequences, where a line is written on a piece of paper, folded over and passed on for the next person to add another part of the story. The kids love that one as it gets really silly. Any board games brought by Santa are also tried out and of course, at some point the children disappear to test a new game for their Playstation or Nintendo.

What are the arguments at home usually about over Christmas?
We’re usually pretty harmonious, but trivial things like what to watch on TV, bedtimes (kids think midnight’s acceptable), and who ate all the chocolates and put the empty papers back in the box. Also relatives who overspend on presents – a personal bugbear of mine. A present can cost a few pounds and be a favourite. Likewise, there have been some very expensive Christmas flops in our house.

What’s the best thing about your Christmas?
The best thing is family all together, with everyone dressed in their best Christmas outfits. When the initial present swapping and meal is over, I love the way those unexpected splinter groups form – Granny and me dancing to the radio as we load the dishwasher, Dad and Grampa Wii snowboarding in the living room, Aunty in the corner lost in the cookery book Santa brought her. We’re all content, all together but doing our own things.

And the worst?
I find the pressure to be organised is intense, and the fact that many men (not just my husband) believe the whole Christmas ‘production’ happens as if by magic, without pre-ordering, shopping, wrapping or stressing. “What have you bought my mum?” is usually the question that tips me over the edge. Women MAKE CHRISTMAS HAPPEN.

In any case, by Christmas Eve I realise everyone’s presents are wrong (or still in the shop) and can only relax when everything’s prepared for the Big Day to the best of my ability and there’s nothing more I can do, or buy, to make a difference.