Jim Reeves was part of every Christmas. My most cherished memory of the festival was waking up late in the morning to the sound of Reeves’ melodic voice wafting through the house. We grew up in a large joint family, in an old Goan (not Portuguese) house, and the acoustics were excellent. Reeves’ voice provided the perfect accompaniment to a late breakfast.
The Lobo family loves to eat (our collective waistlines are proof). Being Christmas, breakfast had to be a feast. There would be different kinds of breads and poee, omelettes, cheese, corned beef [my dad worked in Kuwait and would regularly bring home foreign goods], jams, and of course, cups of milky tea.
Once breakfast was cleared, the table would be cleared for other uses. Out came all the sweets prepared in the preceding days and/or bought. Trays were brought out from the corners of cupboards where they resided through the year, surfacing only on such occasions. Preparing this kusvar — the Christmas sweets tray — was an important part of our celebrations. Sweets would be placed on these patterned trays, covered with a clean cloth, and brought out proudly when visitors came over.
By the side, there was a separate kusvar prepared for families in the village who were in mourning. Typically, whenever someone brought over sweets, the same tray would be sent back with our own sweets. When in mourning, families wouldn’t prepare sweets or decorate their homes, so neighbours would bring over sweets so they would at least have something nice to eat on the day. We youngsters, were usually tasked with delivering these trays.
Meanwhile, my mother and aunt would be busy preparing the two last-minute additions to the lunch: pulao and salad. There’s no Goan festivity among Catholics that is complete without a simple peas’ pulao (the fancier ones would make a prawn pulao, or sometimes choris pulao). Salad here was usually the popular Russian salad (vegetables and fruit mixed with generous helpings of mayonnaise) or a simple one — my aunt would grate carrots and decorate it with tomatoes and a vinaigrette dressing.
Meanwhile, all the food that had been cooked — many of our dishes taste best when allowed to rest — would be taken out of storage. There would be sorpotel, that stew made with pork, chillies, vinegar and spices; a chicken xacuti, rich and coconut-laden; some vegetable dish — typically coconut-dusted, or to make it “fancy,” chhole. Sometimes, there would be salted tongue or roast beef, or if my mother had the time, a beef roulade. There was always fish, fresh catch from the village or the local market, slathered in some masala and fried, or turned into a wholesome fish curry. This wasn’t a typical Goan Christmas spread, but it was ours.
In the preceding days, that same dining table — which had been used for food and to play table tennis — would be a flurry of activity. My grandmother, Mae, would be busy stirring pots of dodol in a copper vessel with a wooden ladle. Stirring for dodol, and many other Goan sweets, is easily an upper-arm workout, except you cannot stop when it hurts. Stop, and you get lumps in the mixture. In case no one told you, all lumps are bad.
My grandaunt, Tia Micas, well-known as the star cook in the family, would be busy cooking up her favourites, like doce. All the tables would be occupied, covered with sheets of paper, upon which trays of dodol and doce were left to cool, and fried neuris kept to drain out the oil.
After my sister-in-law joined the Lobo clan, we started making a few sweets together, too. These are traditional sweets that were made in her family, which she learned from her mother: chocolate salami (a sweet log of broken biscuits, butter, chocolate and nuts) and rum balls.
One year, we even attempted bebinca, painstakingly brushing every layer with ghee and allowing it to bake individually. It was a COVID year, so we had the time. We haven’t recreated it yet.
Once we moved out of my grandmother’s house, my mother and I would make some sweets together, spending nights in a hot kitchen frying kulkuls, crispies, and neuris. My mother would — and to this day still does — make her special bathk (coconut rava cake) and nankhatais (eggless cookies made with ghee, butter and flour).
Christmas isn’t Christmas without attending midnight Mass. A time-honoured tradition — reduced in some places to earlier in the evening due to noise complaints — it is when everyone gathers at the nearest church to sing hymns and welcome the birth of Jesus. It was a time of celebration, but for us kids, it was a time for cake and housie. Any Goan worth her fish will tell you that cake, coffee and housie are as integral to Christmas celebrations as the Christmas tree.
After Mass, devotees would stream out into the cold night air, gathering cups of hot coffee to warm their hands. It would be a balancing act with cake, and later a housie ticket. Back home, in the wee hours of the morning, we would gather at the dining table to eat some of the prepared sweets, share notes on the fashion at church, and identify which ungrateful people didn’t wish the house elders.
That evening, after a short siesta, we would make our way back to church for a ‘Christmas Tree’ celebration, involving a Santa Claus, many sweets for the children, and a fancy dress and singing competition.
It felt like a simpler time.
Today, much has changed. Dodol is no longer made over a wood fire. The sweets are fewer and far between. Many are bought. Moving into a nuclear setup meant that the traditions slowly diminished. Growing older has made me realise that much of what we consider traditions — particularly in the food space — are centred on the weary bones and unacknowledged labour of women. It would be the many women in my family (namely my mother) sitting up late at night preparing food and sweets, wrapping gifts, and ensuring everything was perfect for the day. There was little rest for them. In hindsight, while I miss making sweets together, I am happy just to be surrounded by family on the day.
And I welcome new traditions: learning to cook sweets from my partner’s mother, going for a Christmas dance with friends, snacking on the Christmas hampers sent over by my wonderful baker and chef friends. I still enjoy Jim Reeves.
Christmas, after all, is less about the food itself and more about the people sitting around the table.
