The family celebrating a German Christmas.
Brittney Greene and her family have been planning Christmas dinner since July. This year, it will involve a lot of cheese—raclette, fondue, and hopefully traditional Swiss pastries from a local Houston bakery. For the past 15 years, the family has celebrated Christmas in a decidedly non-traditional way: by learning about and celebrating another culture.
"We got tired of doing the same turkey dinner that we'd just had at Thanksgiving, and my family really enjoys history and learning about other cultures," said Greene.
The process begins during summer. Greene's dad—who came up with the original idea—will order history books about the chosen country. The family will start brainstorming recipes, authentic clothing and they'll even try to find people around town or on the internet who have the same cultural background and might know the language.
Decor for a Dutch-themed Christmas.
The first country they celebrated was Mexico.
They typically source internationally-themed Christmas décor from World Market, Christmas stores in West Texas, or even a big Christmas store back in Alabama, where Greene used to live. They've developed a tradition of trying to find a nutcracker that goes with the theme every year, and they'll often look online at Etsy or other sites for authentic clothing. Or, in the case of the Scotland Christmas, her dad handmade kilts for himself and Greene's husband.
One Christmas, Brittney's father hand made Scottish kilts.
The menus from some years are definitely more memorable from others.
Greene is an avid home cook and once rose to the top 100 candidates during season 6 of Masterchef. For Greece, she challenged herself to make baklava entirely from scratch, including the phyllo dough. She also made her favorite Greek dessert, galaktoboureko, a vanilla custard encased in phyllo (for those curious to try it, Opa Greek Tavern is the only place in town she's found that serves it).
Brittney and family dressed up in togas for their Greek-themed Christmas.
Menus are typically inspired by cookbooks or dishes they've seen or tasted—their Jamaican feast was inspired by a cruise Greene and her husband took to Jamaica. Greene couldn't stop talking about the food once they returned, so that year's feast consisted of authentic jerk chicken, fried plantains, chicken noodle soup spiced with a Jamaican spice pack from H-E-B, pork and pineapple kebabs, callaloo (a type of Jamaican collard green that can be found canned in the international section of HEB) and bammy, a traditional flatbread made with coconut milk and cassava root. To this day, jerk chicken remains in the family's cooking repertoire—as does the lamb her father made for an Australia-themed Christmas and the gyros from the Greece Christmas.
The menu from the Slovakian Christmas.
The most recent tradition? Starting five years ago, Greene began looking for cookie cutters that matches each year's theme. Every year, she ties recipe cards to the cutters as a memento for all the family members. Her goal is to one day have a Christmas tree dedicated to all the cultures they've celebrated with the cookie cutters as ornaments on the tree.