Ethiopian Christmas 2017

Here’s what I love about traditions you can start them anytime you want and you get to make them your own.  Last year we celebrated our first Ethiopian Christmas with family.  We had such a fun time and our family loved doing it.  We loved celebrating this special holiday from Solomon and Amon’s homeland.  We loved diving into the rich Ethiopian culture and remembering where they come from….where their little lives began.

Last year we read up on Ethiopian Christmas and then kind of tweaked it to fit us.  For instance in Ethiopia families often begin the celebration at their place of worship or church, light candles and walk around the building worshipping and praying together.  Our family gathered at our house and lit candles while we prayed before our meal.  We’re making it our own and it feels really special and sweet.

Josh Kelley also wanted to do a coffee ceremony this year.  We ordered some Ethiopian unroasted coffee beans from HERE and he kept a fire going most of the day while roasting beans.  Later in the night after dinner we served everyone Ethiopian coffee, popcorn and dessert.

I really hope next year I can make a few dishes of Ethiopian food on my own, but this year we ordered again from GoJo Ethiopian Cafe & Restaurant and also bought some fun Ethiopian snacks from Brundo.  The beef jerky was amazing and actually never made it to the party 🙂  Our traditional dishes consisted of Miser W’et (lentils), Shiro W’et (chickpeas), Yebeg Alicha (lamb), Beef Tibs (beef), Minchet Abish Deqa (ground beef), Chicken Curry & Peas and lots of injera bread.   We also had Chickfila, veggies, fruit, fun candy treats, rice krispy treats and THIS CAKE but Solomon asked me to make it green, yellow and red like the Ethiopian flag.  Plus ice-cream.  We partied until almost 10 so everyone continued to munch on food and treats all night long.

And as always there we’re tall glass bottle sodas because we have such sweet memories tied up in these drinks from all our special times in Ethiopia and meeting our boys for the first time.

Coming together with our whole family was really special for us.  Coming together and celebrating how special God has knit our family together was crazy good for our hearts.  I know Solomon and Amon felt the extra love.

Never in a million years could I have imagined this family of ours.  So thankful God’s plans are always 10 times better and more amazing than we could ever dream up or fathom.  He is so good.

3 Comments

  1. When you order from GoJo what do you tell them so they make your order more like catering style? Ours always comes like individual meal to go boxes.

    • We always order a few days ahead of time and tell them we’re ordering for a party. When I’m telling them our order I always tell them how many people we’re planning on feeding too. For catering orders they place two orders in one pan…so they are not individually panned. Hope that helps 🙂

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