MY FAMILY'S MOUTHWATERING CHRISTMAS DAY MEAL VARIETIES

Christmas has arrived, and the city is lively, the kids are dancing, the family is thrilled, and presents are appearing from everywhere. However, there is another component of Christmas that virtually everyone agrees is distinctive and pleasurable: the food. Today I'll show you some of the incredible food options that my family enjoys over the Christmas season.

_{image design by me on canva}

The holiday season officially began for me on Wednesday when I visited a few of my friends in Lagos before traveling to Kwara State, where I would spend Christmas with my family. The house where our grandparents live is where my family traditionally gathers as an extended family, but when I got home on Friday, it was empty.

The house was empty not because people weren't coming but because they were either on their way or in church, but I was immediately charged with the responsibility of purchasing some necessities in the market and as well preparing some petty meals while we waited for my uncle's wife, who's a professional chef, to do the cooking of the main dishes while we assisted her.

While at the kitchen, she told us that this year she'll be cooking both continental and African dishes for Christmas, so everyone can easily choose whoever they want. With that in mind, I was already looking forward to eating her sweet potatoes and plantains, which are always delicious when I taste them.

Marjoly, the foods to be prepared are fried rice, white rice, and jollof rice; also, we prepared beans, plantains, and sweet potatoes; and for the local dishes, foods like pounded yam, amala, and various soups like oghono, vegetables, and okro were prepared. It was a wonderful but stressful experience while assisting her because she's the type who loves to have her cooking environment neat while cooking no matter how plenteous the meals are.

The pounded yam is a collection of pounded yam that was first cooked before being pounded in a mortar with a pestle, and below is a picture of when we were pounding it.

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Below are some pictures of the various meals we cooked, the settings of the dining table, and the ones we gave to our neighbors.

CONTINENTAL DISHES

Here is the various rice varieties:

Fried Rice	White Rice	White Rice

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We also had other continental related dishes like potato and plantain with fish, beans and plantain with fish and many more, below are some pictures:

Sweet potato and plantain	Beans and plantain

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For the African traditional dishes, we have the likes of Pounded yam and amala, while for the soup, we've vegetable soup, oghono, okro and sauce, below are some of the photos:

Pounded yam	pounded yam with oghono soup	Amala with vegetable soup

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While for refreshments we have drinks like chivita and Eva water to go with the various meals as you can see in most of the meal images above and below is one to give you a easy insight.

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Today being Christmas also happens to be the birthday of my brother @seunolupinsaiye , and to celebrate him, his wife baked him a cake, which was shared for everyone to celebrate with him on this special day. I've got a gift for him, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow, which is Boxing Day, but below is an image of his cake.

This Christmas is one of the most remarkable ones I've ever experienced, for the food, reunion, and many other things, and as we're already approaching the end of the day, I can't wait for next year's Christmas to come around so I can have such an experience once again.

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That's about all on my family's experience with our various food varieties this Christmas, which are just all mouth-watering. The write-up was prompted by the WEEKEND EXPERIENCES community institute by @galenkp; you can read through his post here to get an insight into what is required before you participate.

NOTE: All photos used in this post are mine and snapped with my smartphone.

Thanks for reading through,have a blessed, productive and merry Christmas.