The end of the year is getting closer which means dark winter nights and cold mornings. But most importantly, dinners with the entire family celebrating special times. Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas celebrations are huge and involve a lot of family traditions. Some of these include favorite foods only made around the holidays.

Conversations abound this time of the year about favorite holiday dishes, especially from students dreaming of heading home for the holidays.   

“In Argentina we celebrate Christmas a little differently than many people think,” said sophomore Luciano Fisicaro from Rosario, Argentina. 

Fisicaro likes to get together with his family to celebrate and enjoy a good Asado, which is also his favorite dish. Many good memories return when having this Asado explained the sophomore. It is the Fisicaro family tradition to have everyone (friends and family) come together to catch up, celebrate and enjoy the Argentinian BBQ.

Mostachón de frutas is the favorite Christmas dish of freshman Paulina Reyes Espinoza from Chihuahua, Mexico. Mostachón de frutas is a combination of fruit meringue and pavlova with whipped cream. 

“It’s really sweet and soft, however still crunchy. This is such an exciting moment for me during Christmas,” said Reyes.

It became a favorite dessert of the whole family after the freshman’s uncle brought it all the way from a bakery in Monterrey, Mexico. The Reyes Espinoza family tradition is that every family member brings one dish to the table. 

Brandie Winter, an athletics administrative assistant from Tyrone, Oklahoma, loves to eat green bean casserole for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is a dish that is served every year, and therefore, the family tradition. Winter explained that she basically just loves the taste and finds comfort in a dish that is familiar. However, the most important thing was that the family only prepared it for special occasions.

Another dish that came up often was cheesy potatoes. Tate Cain, head coach of cheer and dance from Tyrone, Oklahoma, preferred this dish every Thanksgiving or Christmas. It’s not a special dish but the family ate it every year, so it became a little tradition and a must-have. Cheesy potatoes are Cain’s favorite because he likes potatoes and cheese separately, so together this ends up as the best option possible.  

Sophomore Lucia Popluharová, from Bratislava, Slovakia, said they have a lot of Christmas traditions in the family. One is also Popluharová’s favorite dessert called: Medovniky. The sophomore makes the cookies with her mom every year for the whole family. She described Medovniky as a honey cinnamon spice cookie. She also likes to eat fish. 

“I’m raised in a religious family, so we have a tradition that my grandpa goes fishing in the morning and brings home what he catches and that would be our first main dish,” said the sophomore. 

Popluharová explained that they fast the whole day until dinner as part of their religious traditions.