I can’t believe it is almost Christmas again, I must admit though at the beginning year especially with burger boy and I starting our own business, we had wished hard for it to be Christmas then and there. So in spirit of Christmas thanks to Wiltshire, I have 5 Wiltshire Christmas Gingerbread ($8.98) family cookie cutters and Partybake Babushka Doll Cake Pans ($14.95) to giveaway to foodie cravings readers.
For your chance to WIN one of five Wiltshire Christmas sets, like foodie cravings facebook page (if you haven’t already) and tell me what’s your Christmas tradition by midnight WST SUN 16/12/12. burger boy and I are often 5kgs heavier after having Christmas lunch at his parents place and dinner at my parents place - see my post on last year’s Christmas feast 
The Wiltshire gingerbread kit includes five cookie cutters - a gingerbread dad, mum, brother, sister and even a dog. The pack also includes six disposable icing bags to make it easier to decorate without too much of a mess. Once baked and decorated, the Gingerbread family can be given as Christmas gifts but I think I’d eat them before I got a chance to give them away.
The Wiltshire Partybake Babushka Doll Cake Pan holds one regular cake mix across its six doll moulds and has a non-stick surface, is dishwasher, fridge, freezer, microwave and oven safe and comes with a five year guarantee. I’ve given my cake pan to burger boy’s nanna, she’s going to be making little fruit loafs I think we’re both winners as I’m sure I would be offered a taste or two.
Wiltshire ginger bread cutters can be found at Big W and the Babushka Doll Cake Pans can be found at David Jones / Myers. For full list of stockists call 1800 651 146.
Competition T&Cs
- Wiltshire competition is open to all foodie cravings readers with an Australian postal address
- The 5 best entries who have liked foodie cravings facebook page will win a Wiltshire Christmas Gingerbread family cookie cutter (valued at $8.98) and Babushka Doll Cake Pan (valued at $14.95)
- Competition closes midnight WST Sunday 16/12/12 and winners will be notified by email / announced on foodie cravings facebook page, twitter and blog on Monday 17/12/12.
Looking forward to hearing all about your Christmas traditions.
For me, I’ve always spent Christmas Eve with my dad’s family for a more European Christmas with my lovely German nana - a hot Christmas diner - turkey and vegies, definitely red cabbage - a total must! Then Christmas day, a lot more Oz - salads and every cold roast meat under the sun. It is a two stage feast and I love it to bits!
Love the two stage feast! Sounds like my Christmas
Because my father is French, if we all are in the same city (which is once every few years) we have a traditional European style celebration on Xmas eve with Dad and our step mum, and on Christmas day we used to cook a more Australian version with roast turkey and pudding with Mum.
Our Christmas tradition used to be for my sister to have a complete melt down and end up throwing food or drink in my general direction! To avoid my sisters meltdowns, we no longer cook on Xmas day….we go out some flash and no one gets stressed. Hopefully! Bah!
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Sounds like a very good idea having Christmas out in your household
what’s usually open on Christmas Day?
My Christmas is always low key - it changes from year to year as to who comes or where we are. But the one thing that always stays the same are my dad’s terrible Christmas cracker jokes, and mum’s ham and cheese croissants.
So much so, that even though I’m hosting Christmas for the first time this year, I’m still insisting she brings them!
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Lol you can’t change tradition! Love ham & cheese croissants
before burger boy and I were married back in our dating days - his Italian mamma would make them for us every time we stayed over the weekend.
The mayhem of family food prep starts about 2 weeks before Christmas and I have to meld my family traditions with my hubbys. So my mum and I are madly preparing our goodies like Pineapple tarts, a special portuguese style pickle and a few more Christmas snacks (all family recipes passed down over generations from Singapore) and then I go off and prep my hubby’s Chrissy treats make Christmas Puddings (for next year as they are better aged) and home made fruit mince pies and orange brandy butter. On Christmas Eve (which is dedicated to my side of the family, it’s a battle of getting the turkey out of the webber, ham glazed and a few Asian influenced specialty curries on the table at my folks. Food, a bit of madness, bad carol singing, church (before food) and maybe a mad game of poker - oh and presents. Then Christmas day it’s rest time for us in the afternoon and it’s dinner at the inlays where they always must have brussel sprouts as one of the vegie dishes as that’s what the hubby’s dad used to have in England (albeit it being not in season here). It’s pretty sedate there apart from the bad Christmas Cracker Jokes. At about midnight -at home , me and hubby just sit down on the sofa, pour ourselves a drink and try to enjoy the Christmas tree and the lights and the cleaning up of copious amounts of wrapping paper previously from the presents that wrapped our little girls gifts.
burger boy’s Italian mamma has started making Christmas treats too, lucky my job is just to eat like your family’s
Good to hear that you have a bit of rest time in between!
We have 4 kids this Christmas & I’m so glad the IL’s have gone interstate this year so no running around all day! We have started our own family traditions. Christmas eve the kids get a present which is always new Summer PJs to wear that night. The next morning they can attack the Santa sacks on their beds then hopefully later than 6am we get up & have a stack of pancakes. Then after a play with their new toys we all pile in the car & they sleep (I’m mostly dreaming here) the 2 1/2 hour drive to my parents farm. As soon as we get there we go out & throw the yabby nets in. Mum then makes a big ham & cold salads for dinner. Boxing day we go & pull the nets & have yabby salad & yabby mornay for lunch before driving back to Perth. I always wish there were leftover yabbies to bring home but there never are!
Oh sounds wonderful Caprice. Love the new PJs tradition
A yearly tradition we never keep,
But i always seem to end up with a lack of sleep!
The only certain thing is opening presents,
And then we head off to random events.
Sometimes we indulge in big meals,
Other times we go fishing for eels!
But no matter what gets done,
We always have lots of fun!!
And fun it should be
lack of sleep not so cool but hey as long as you’re having fun! Christmas for us is all about spending time with family & enjoying the company.
My Christmas tradition in the lead up to Christmas is to donate to a charity like World Vision or Unicef. I let my three daughters buy a ‘gift’ like a chicken, mosquito net, etc and they get a card in the mail which they display in their room.
On actual Christmas Day, we have lunch at my parent’s place (a traditional roast lunch with all the trimmings), then we go to my in-laws for a Greek lamb feast! To say we have difficulty walking at the end of the day would be an understatement!!
That’s a really wonderful Michelle tradition - I’m adding that to my list!
Our tradition at Christmas is that we are all allowed to eat caramel tart for breakfast on Boxing day, I love it, it’s something to look foward to for Boxing day!!
One of my family Christmas traditions is the ham. I ALWAYS am the one that prepares the ham ( even if I am not with my family each Christmas I ALWAYS prepare the ham the same way ) I make a cranberry and orange glazed ham and always ‘cook’ it in the webber out the back. It has been this way since I started cooking it when I was 15 and still 11 years later it is how I always prepare my ham
Our Christmas Tradition is holding an annual Christmas Party for 50 of our friends where we put on a 3 course meal and everyone brings a present under $10 for the Stealing Santa Present game. It’s a great night and we love being able to spend quality time with our friends when the season is most often taken up by visiting and catching up with family.
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Our christmas tradition is changing this year.Usually we go visits both sides of the family while dragging our 7 kids around.This year we are having everyone here and told them to make their favorite christmas dish.Seeing as my side is italian and his side is russian,it could make for a very fattening xmas
Eating a giant honey glazed ham…followed by boxes of leftover ham in the fridge that will be consumed over the next 7 days in the form of stir fries, sandwich fillings, salads, and fried rice!
Eating choclate under the Christamas Tree on Christmas Eve with my children reading The Night Before Christmas
Oh my goodness, some of you have the most wonderful traditions! Caprice, I love the summer PJ thing too - I got Miss Six a pair for Christmas but am now going to give them to her Christmas eve - lovely idea!My Christmas tradition involves a bit of coordination as my daughter needs to spend time with her Dad and his side of the family so there’s usually a bit of driving involved before we settle in for a couple of days at my parents’ beach-side home with endless food, endless cousins, plentyof swims…and just a few teeny sips of bubbly (to celebrate the festive season , of course!)
Coming from an Italian background and my hubby is also from a European background our tradition is centred around food! It all starts with my little family Christmas Eve dinner- just us 4, then Christmas day with the morning unwrapping gifts and paper and boxes everywhere, no breakfast, (except the kids) then onto lunch at either my parents or my in law’s depending whose turn it is, and the feast begins and doesn’t end until way after dark where we have moved on to the other parents. Come home, way too full and complaining we ate too much and we feel sick, but yet we do the same every year and we love it
Every year we ditch the turkey, and each of us cooks and shares our favourite dish. We end up with a real mish-mash of food. Last year we had curry, lasagna, and pizza, among other things. Some people find it odd, but I think it’s more fun this way.
My Christmas tradition is going to the Christmas eve mass and having a family dinner together with my aunt and her daughter who lives nearby. My mom is a great cook and she use to cook cream soup with puff pastry on top, macaroni schotel, grilled stuffed chicken, potato gratin and veggies. This year will be my first Christmas experience away from home and my family since I continue my study in Aust at the moment. Honestly I feel so sad but I am sure that I’ll get new delightful experience of celebrating Christmas with very nice people that I meet here.
Our Christmas tradition is to have all of the family over for breakfast in the morning and the great Christmas present unwrapping. We always have croissants with jam and cream cheese (also another odd family tradition). Breakfast is the only opportunity to get everyone together, we all have to rush off to other family things all over the countryside and its a great opportunity to get together.
Far less full-on these days, but it used to be lunch at my Sicilian grandparents’ house, gnocchi, turkey, ham, stuffed meat etc. then on to my Northern Intalian grandparents’ house for a more relaxed assortment of delicasies for dinner. Now we just have lunch at my parents house, still with glorious gnocchi though. It should be especially memorable as it’s my 7 month old nephew’s first christmas. But for him, no teeth, so no gnocchi!
Our Christmas morning tradition is to cut the leg ham and have it on hot, buttery toast. (This usually washed down with chocolates that someone has already opened, then a nice hot drink). Most of all though, we love to remember what Christmas is really about, the wonderful birth of Christ.
looks awsome a great deal
A tradition in my family is while the Christmas pudding is being made, everyone has a turn at stirring the mixture and making a wish.
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Our tradition is to gather at my aunt’s house for roast chicken and wine and watch old family videos together and reminisce about the good old days.
Our Christmas is always changing, but the tradition is, anybody is welcome. Our home is open, and there is food and always a present for everybody there.
For me, it’s not christmas without CHEESE! People often ask me what on earth cheese has to do with christmas, but for me it IS christmas. Every year without fail my Grandma would make the most amazing cheese platter for us all to share, it was the absolute highlight of my day. I live in Brisbane now, and all my family lives in Perth… I rarely get to spend Christmas with them
But I still always make sure that wherever I spend Christmas we have a cheese platter there ready for me to eat! I spread the cheesy christmas joy to all around me haha
Our Christmas tradition is putting on a huge feast with the family and extended family, which theres always enough food left for boxing day.Then we open presents and sit back and relax and let the children play. Its a great day
A new Christmas story on Christmas Eve to add to the book collection, with the year and message written inside. New Chrissie PJs on whilst sitting on daddy’s knee for the story. This year daddy will have to use both knees with the new baby joining in too. It’s lovely as each year we read the Christmas stories again leading up to Christmas with the new addition saved for Christmas Eve. As the girls get older they will write some stories to add to the book collection too and will be nice to look back at their Christmas messages
Our tradition is that our Christmas dessert is always my Nanna’s trifle, made using her own recipe for custard (real egg custard!). Plum pudding is OK, but nothing beats her delicious, sweet, cold, custardy trifle!
Ever since we were little, our Christmas traditions have been filled with puzzles and riddles! We’ve always opened our presents on Christmas Eve but we’re only allowed to begin the opening ceremony when we’ve found the first two stars of the evening- which would certainly build anticipation since Australian Summer nights don’t ususally get dark until late! My older brother was so proud to use his binoculars to find even the tiniest star and we would scream and run inside to tell Mum and Dad because we were so excited.
After giving our gifts to Mum and Dad, my parents would often pretend that they forgot to get us anything. After “fooling” us for a bit Dad would present all five of us with our own treasure map filled with word clues that led to new clues around the house. I can’t even begin to explain how much fun these hunts were. Eventually we’d find our own Santa sack filled with goodies and somehow mum always manages to get the perfect presents even if we haven’t asked for them.
It’s funny because even though they’re such childish traditions, we still do them every year even though the youngest of us children is 17 now. It’s lovely because even my 26 year old brother joins in the fun! I don’t think our special traditions will ever die. =)
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My Dad cut down a pine tree every year when I was younger, which is a tradition I miss now with my partner’s and my plastic tree! However, we started a tradition of watching Love Actually every Christmas Eve.
Spending the 1st of December at the inlaws. Catching up over coffee while all the kids decorate the christmas tree.
My husband and i have a tradition which we have done since we met. We get ourselve a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream and put the Christmas tree up together on the first weekend of December. It is all the more special now that we have two kids we do it after they go to bed and we just love to see their faces in the morning when they first see it.
Christmas day is all about complete over indulgence lol we have a pancake breakfast every christmas morning followed by presents , then at lunch we head to my mums house for ham, pork and salads followed by my nans trifle, I wait all year for this trifle !!!
Dinner is spent with my hubbys family and always starts with fresh prawns then more ham, roast chicken and roast vegies as well as dessert again but this time it is the yummy italian kind, cassata, tiramisu and pannetone as well as traditional plum pudding !!!
yes christmas day is spent making us as fat as the Christmas ham lol
Our family tradition is that just before bed time on Christmas Eve, the kids ( and “big” kids) get to open 1 present which has too be confirmed with the parents…..
My christmas tradition was baking with my mother on Christmas eve. I now try to bake with my son but he interest is weining. I will bake regardless!
Our family tradition is every Christmas Eve we meet at a family members house with our entire family and sing Christmas carols and exchange gifts we all look forward to it every year mind you the neighbours must freed it as we are all tone deaf!!
We like to keep our Christmas simple so no one is working too hard! Cold meat salads, prawns etc but it wouldn’t be Christmas without our long lived tradition of coco pops for breakfast!! Haha!
Our favourite tradition is when we attend midnight mass and then let the kids open one present before santa comes!
Christmas tradition is always to get up ridiculously early to open presents and then start cooking a delicious roast lunch with all the trimmings. Dinner that night is always left overs, if anybody is hungry
Well usually I am wrapping presents Christmas Eve lol. We wake up Christmas morning at home and open presents and then get in the car to drive 3 hours to where my family is. They take turns hosting and this year is my brother’s first turn
My family tradition is having my big tribe of a family come together at a different persons house every year, we all bring one allocated item and own drinks for Chrissy celebrations. We always finish with an Aussie Pavlova topped with summer fruits, so yum!
Thanks everyone for sharing your Christmas traditions & entering my Wiltshire Christmas bakeware competition. My favourite (and winning) entries are by Michelle V, Rachel, Samantha Y, Sara Hayward and Courtney. Check your emails ladies and let me know your best postal address
congrats & Merry Christmas all!