Christmas Memories from the Bitesize irish team

Maybe you’ve already read about the Traditional Irish Christmas. But how about the members of the Bitesize Irish team?

Even though we were all born and raised in Ireland, we have a few Christmas stories of our own.

Here are just a few of our most beautiful Irish Christmas memories.

Eoin – Bitesize Irish founder

“I was staying at my grandad’s house for Christmas, in Tralee, County Kerry. He was a native of Kerry. To the best of my understanding, he would drive a milk truck, collecting milk from farms and delivering it to the creamery in Dingle (An Daingean) in Kerry. It’s at the creamery where my grandmother worked and where they met. He spent years away from Kerry (in England and then Dublin). But Kerry was his home and I suspect he was happy to be back there. These days, there is a small brewery in that creamery. I was visiting the brewery once and only when I was inside I realised its significance to me.

It was Christmas Eve and I was probably 6 or 7 years old. I was lying in bed, my three sisters in the same room. We were giddy for Santa to come. It was my strongly held belief that he was going to land on the roof of the small house with his reindeer. My bed was by the window. Every couple of minutes, I would open up the curtains to look out but nothing unusual was on the roof. Sleep must have gotten the better of me, but not for long, haha! By about 4am I was up with my sisters enjoying the gifts that Santa had brought.”

Siobhán – Irish Language Assistant 

“Childhood memories of Christmas time are etched indelibly into my memory. As a family, we stayed faithful to the tradition of abstaining from doing anything festive before the 8th of December; the Roman Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception. As soon as the 8th was reached, however, I was very excited to erect the manger, or nativity scene as you may call it, and hang up the tinsel. 

That did not stop me, however, from deliberating for weeks on the best and most reasonable requests to Santy and a letter to the North Pole would be attempted several times before getting it just right. The dearest memory of all, however, are the trips to midnight Mass and seeing houses and farm sheds lit up like cities on the way there and back. 

The sky was often clear enough to see the big bright moon and I often thought I caught a glimpse of Santy and his sledge passing across it. I can still feel the excitement and wonder I felt when I saw the high neon star shining brightly away in the distance on a midland plain. “

Gabrielle – Community Manager

“Growing up, my parents were teachers in our local secondary school and every Christmas Eve the Nuns invited us to Midnight Mass in the convent. It was a lovely evening and we had a chance to catch up with all the other families we only see at Christmas! 

Every Christmas morning in the Campion house, we have croissants for breakfast (not very traditional!) and then my Mammy, my sisters and I get to work on the Christmas dinner. 

Every year we have turkey, ham, stuffing, brussel sprouts and the most important ingredient – roast potatoes! In our house, we all fight over who has been given the most brussel sprouts – whoever gets the most is the winner! 

After dinner, we exchange small gifts and then read the books we got for Christmas by the fire. 

We have a really special family day – we relax and forget about everything outside…it’s too cold to go out anyway!  

Even as the family has dispersed, and our traditions are starting to change, we still keep the same relaxed-family feeling to our day.”

Thank you for taking the time to read our stories! Click here to learn more about Christmas in Ireland!

Nollaig Shona Daoibh go léir ón bhfoireann Bitesize!