Check out how the How Black Girls Are team is planning to celebrate Christmas during the wildest year of our lives.

Charise: starting new traditions across the pond

This will be my second Christmas as a UK resident, but (like the rest of a great deal of the world) my first time celebrating the holidays during a pandemic. I moved to London two years ago, and while it has been quite a difficult transition, I found I quite enjoyed the Christmas season in this big, blustery city and was introduced to some fun (and some boring) traditions by my husband Chris’ British family. Among the new-to-me traditions I experienced were: deliciously greasy fry ups, aka the Full English Breakfast, the hilarious pantomimes enjoyed by people of all ages, the Boxing Day horse races that reminded me a bit of U.S. football tailgates, and the cheap Christmas crackers that hold a small trinket and a corny joke (though you can find some bougie crackers if you have the largesse). This year will still have festive lights, gifts, sweets, meals and crackers (in every sense of the word…I digress), but that warmth that comes from spending time watching movies, playing games, and sharing laughter with family will come in a smaller package this year as Chris and I start our own Christmas traditions, incorporating bits from all the cultures we embody.

Tierra: keeping it super simple with little kids

My husband and I would happily treat Christmas like any other day, but we have young children and my parents live nearby. So our plans reflect a balance of old traditions with new ones. We’ll open presents at home with just our kids in the morning. Breakfast is bagels and smoked salmon cream cheese from Bullfrog Bagels. We got the boys a trampoline in the hopes of wearing them out, so hopefully they take brief naps before we head over to my mom’s house; There we’ll have a potluck lunch – I’m bringing stuffing bread! – and exchange presents with my parents and sister. They’ve been our COVID bubble since March. Normally we would have dinner at China Jade, but the pandemic means no indoor dining. So this year, we’ll order take-out from Panda Gourmet and eat it at home. I also plan to celebrate the end of a December Whole30 (Whole24?) with a bottle of Prosecco after the kids go to bed.

The HBGA Team

An expat, a cannabis advocate, a stay-at-home mom, an artist, a nonprofit director and an environmental scientist walked into a blog.

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