The Christmas Perspective
A little bit from ‘The Festive Belgian Bakery - Holiday Edition’ on Christmas day and the difference in British and Belgian Christmas.
A little bit from ‘The Festive Belgian Bakery - Holiday Edition’ on Christmas day.
‘Christmas dinner is often soup as a starter, turkey or a game bird with fresh vegetables and potato croquettes as the main meal and a butter cream yule log or ice cream log for dessert. You’ll often have some appetisers first; little olives, crudité with a dip, oysters… and French cheeses at the end of the evening.’
I talk in the book about the different foods and traditions but didn’t touch on the difference in perception around Christmas.
Christmas in Belgium feels like more of a private affair.
Until a few years ago you’d struggle to find a radio station playing Christmas songs and supermarket workers in festive antlers or Santa hats was a comedical over-the-top display of extravagance and expression. That did slightly change, though. Christmas songs are much more common on the radio and people will dress up a bit.
Even mentioning it to others is a bit weird.
You would say ‘nog ne goeie kerst, he’ or ‘have a good Christmas’ but actually wishing someone Merry Christmas (vrolijk kerstfeest) or Happy Holidays (fijne feestdagen) out load rather than on a card is profoundly odd. It’s seen as a bit weird and feels almost shameful to celebrate you know, with wild abandon rather than in private with family or friends.
You can wish people a Happy New Year ‘een gelukkig nieuwjaar!’, or ‘nog een gelukkig nieuwjaar’ if it’s a while after January 1st, which is actually on the other hand very common and will be said at work or to people working in a business in settings where you have or are expected to have more regular contact even if this was the first and/or only time you contacted said person.
It’s not expected at the supermarket, even though you can. You’ll get New year’s wishes or be expected to share them for at least two or three weeks into the new year.
Shopping
Shoppers will still be buying groceries and decorations the day of Christmas eve, here people seem to buy everything for their Christmas meal a lot earlier. Shops market their products with ‘buy now, freeze for Christmas’ and especially online shops move away from promoting Christmas decorations and gifts to their post-Christmas sale a week before Christmas.
Christmas does seem to end quite abruptly after December 26th, though.
For more on the whole Belgian holiday season, do listen to my interview on Maggie Green’s Cookbook Love podcast.
We also had a chat about working with chocolate and publishing your own book. You can listen to that festive episode here or click on the image below.
And there was a bonus after show episode of my conversation with Vickie Kelty!
You might remember her from a previous newsletter. In this after party we chat, amongst other thing, about the work involved in making chocolate figures and Vicky’s slight baking disaster. She asked me to guess what happened. I’m glad to report I got it right on the first try! We’re getting into the swing of things in this after show episode!
Articles you might not have read.
Since these emails haven’t always been arriving in people’s inboxes, and quite a few people have signed up more recently, you can catch up here on the archive page or take a look at some of the biggest pieces you might have missed below.
Is there such a thing as a Belgian pie?
All about the 'vlaai' a fruit-filled pie made with a yeast-raised dough made since the Middle Ages.
And yes, my book is still available too.
It’s all about the Belgian holiday season, from St Nicholas day in early December, Epiphany and lost Monday in January to Candlemas in February.
Each chapter has an introduction about the holidays celebrated and the different traditions and of course the recipes are included too.
If you missed any of the articles people wrote about the book, or would like to re-read one of the glowing reviews before getting your copy, you can find all of them on this page.
If you’re not in the US or the UK, you can also find the book on your local amazon shop, look around for the best price as they vary from country to country.
All these websites also sell the Dutch version of the book. Clicking on my name on any of these websites should take you to my ‘author page’ where you can see both version listed.
Merry Christmas if you celebrate, fijne feestdagen if you celebrate anything else and een gelukkig nieuwjaar if you don’t celebrate anything at all but would still like to be wished a happy new year.