Bring home Christmas traditions from around the world
Get in the holiday spirit with global foods and festivities
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Every family has unique holiday traditions that they keep alive year after year. Whether it's Chinese takeout on Christmas Eve or a feast of seven fishes, maintaining tradition—especially through food—is a way of keeping the holiday spirit alive.
If you don't have any Christmas traditions of your own (or you're always willing to welcome in new ones), we recommend referencing global cultures. There are endless holiday food traditions from around the world that you can adopt to conjure the holiday spirit at home.
And luckily, it doesn't take much effort (thanks, Goldbelly and Etsy). Here are some delicious Christmas traditions around the world that you can shop to celebrate with your loved ones.
Italian panettone
Your loaf of panettone bread will come packed with plenty of tasty treats inside.
A party and dinnertime staple in Italy, panettone is a traditional dessert that resembles a sweet bread and is typically filled with dried or candied fruits. But since it's become more popular globally, there is a much wider variety of flavors available, from chocolate chip to limoncello.
For the best of the best panettone experience, we love Olivieri 1882 for its historic handcrafted technique that utilizes artisan ingredients like ultra fermented sourdough and Tahiti bourbon vanilla.
Mexican Ponche Navideño
It's just not Christmas without a festive cocktail (or mocktail) at the ready. A traditional Mexican drink for this time of year is called Ponche Navideño (AKA Christmas punch), which is a warm drink that blends seasonal fruit juices with fragrant spices. And, of course, you can always add a splash of tequila for some extra holiday cheer.
A dried fruit blend makes this recipe a cinch; just boil the blend with the included sweetener and mix it with whatever juice (and spirits) you choose.
French Buche de Noel
Trust us, you'll want to eat everything—including the rich, chocolatey bark—off this French log.
France's iconic log-shaped Christmas cake is a crowd-pleasing dessert that's perfect for holiday meals and parties. This dessert takes some patience and skill to create, but luckily, you don't have to go at it alone. Flour Bakery on Goldbelly ships a foolproof Buche de Noel kit that includes everything to put the finishing touches on an expert's creation.
All you need to do is slice the "stump," cover the exterior with ganache, and decorate the cake with included rosemary, cranberry, fig cone, and powdered sugar garnishes.
German stollen
The powdered sugar on top is the ultimate confectionary finish.
The holidays are all about sweets and carbs, and traditional German stollen is a wonderful manifestation of that. This holiday staple is essentially a loaf of sweet bread filled with nuts, spices, and dried fruit and topped with powdered sugar.
If you're not prepared to try your hand at this dessert yourself, don't worry: Chef Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery ships its specialty stollen bread nationwide. It boasts a frangipane center with candied orange peels, rum, almonds, and a powdered sugar topping.
A seasonal dessert crafted by a Michelin-starred chef with no effort required. What says "special occasion" better than that?
Filipino bibingka
In the Philippines, it's common to find bibingka—a baked rice cake—on the table during the holidays. This dessert is made from rice flour, which gives it a uniquely soft, spongy texture (and makes it naturally gluten-free!). Around this time of year, bibingka is usually eaten for breakfast, dessert, or—more traditionally—as a post-late-night-church snack.
This recipe is made with fairly simple ingredients, but you can also opt for a bibingka mix to ensure you achieve success.
Danish Risalamande
This Danish Kringle is inspired by another Danish holiday dessert, Risalamande.
Another sweet, carby dessert (sensing a theme here?) to enjoy this time of year is Risalamande from Denmark. Directly translated to "rice with almonds," this traditional dish consists of rice pudding with whipped cream, chopped almonds, and topped with cherry sauce.
Risalamande is fairly easy to DIY, but if you want to enjoy a spin on the classic recipe, O&H Danish Bakery makes a Risalamande-inspired Kringle pastry (a Scandinavian oval-shaped buttery pastry) that's filled with almonds and cherries.
Japanese KFC
In Japan, fried chicken is the Christmas dinner of choice for millions.
Who said Christmas dinner has to include ham—or any homemade dish, for that matter?
Every Christmas in Japan, around 3.6 million Japanese citizens celebrate with a bucket of crispy fried chicken from KFC (yes, really). It's become a historic tradition ever since an ultra-successful marketing campaign back in the '70s. So why not celebrate like Japan and order some good ol' fried chicken this Christmas?
If KFC for dinner sounds too much like a boring Tuesday night, consider Blue Ribbon's "The Coop" fried chicken dinner. Named America's best fried chicken by Food & Wine, this holiday meal is anything but ordinary. The chicken is coated with matzo meal crumbs and topped with wildflower honey, and it comes with creamy mashed potatoes and sauteed collard greens.
Jamaican black cake
We all know about the fruitcake that's referenced in popular Christmas songs and movies, but Jamaica's version of this holiday treat has a (delicious) twist.
Jamaican fruit cake, or Black Cake, is made by soaking dried fruit in a boozy mixture of rum and wine, and then mixing them with butter, sugar, eggs, spices, and flour to result in a dark and incredibly moist dessert that celebrates the flavors of the season.
This is another recipe that requires time and lots of ingredients, but lucky this Etsy baker has mastered the technique, earning a 5-star rating from almost 150 happy customers.
British Christmas crackers
You won't be able to have just one of these yummy Christmas crackers.
Okay, not technically an edible treat, but Christmas crackers are a fun tradition that brings life to the dinner table.
A tradition that dates back to the British Victorian era, a Christmas cracker is a wrapped paper tube that, when pulled at both ends, emits a loud cracking sound and reveals a colorful paper crown that's meant to be worn during the meal.
These fun trinkets can be made from scratch using toilet paper rolls, wrapping paper, and homemade construction paper crowns. But you can also buy a pack of them from Williams Sonoma, where they're artfully designed and include ornaments, jokes, riddles, and game cards in addition to the traditional paper hats.
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