Bree: Hey there listeners, today we have a special bonus episode for you. We were curious to hear what people are doing this Christmas Eve, and so we asked. My mom, Shauna, who you heard in our Christmas episode, went out into the streets of Calgary, Canada, which is where I’m from, to ask a few people what their plans are this Christmas Eve. Let’s take a listen.

Francis: So this year, my daughter just turned two, so Christmas is going to be extra special for us. She’s actually very excited about the presents that are going underneath the tree and we’ll be allowing her to open one on Christmas Eve this year. And we’re also having my dad over for dinner.

Shauna: Nice, do you eat anything special?

Francis: We’re actually making Asian style fondue for dinner.

Shauna: Ooh, I’ve never heard of that.

Francis: Yeah, so it’s like a red wine base. And then we have like chicken, marinated beef, vegetables. You cook that in the broth and you have like different sauces that go along with that. So kind of a different … a bit of a different tradition at our place, but it’s kind of a French-Canadian.

Shauna: Oh, is it?

Francis: Yeah, French, Canadian, thing so.

Shauna: Oh Like that.

Francis: Yeah.

Shauna: Okay. Well, thank you very much, Francis. And that’s what a French Canadian living in Calgary is doing for this Christmas. Thank you.

Francis: Absolutely!

Calvin: Christmas Eve, I spend time with my family and my siblings to enjoy a morning brunch and play board games all day long.

Shauna: Oh cool, so what do you have for morning brunch?

Calvin: A morning brunch in Canada consists of lots of bacon and eggs and pancakes and orange juice.

Shauna: And what do you do for dinner?

Francis: We don’t eat dinner. We’ll nibble our snack. But our big meal of the day is is breakfast and brunch and just nibbling throughout the afternoon?

 Shauna: Oh, cool. All right. Well, thank you very much.

Calvin: You’re welcome.

Shauna: Appreciate it and have a great Christmas Eve.

Calvin: Perfect. Thank you.

Ricardo: Christmas Eve, we have a huge dinner and invite the entire family. Usually we either make turkey buns. That’s our Salvadorian specialty. It’s a really saucy turkey in a bun with watercress or we’ll make tamales, which is like a chicken and pork little pillow that’s really tasty as well. Yeah. And usually the presents get opened the same night. We don’t we don’t wait for the next morning to open the presents. Nobody has the patience. Yeah, that’s that’s pretty much every year. Get as much family together as possible and eat as much as possible. And we do dance a lot too.

Shauna: Oh do you? What kind of music?

Ricardo: Usually it’s all latino music, salsa, merengue, reggaeton is big nowadays.

Shauna: Okay. And how old is this little sweatheart?

Ricardo: Maeli is 16 months,

Shauna: 16 months?

Ricardo: Yeah, she’s already used to the parties. She loves dancing.

Bree: From the entire Into the Story team here at AC Inglés, we want to wish you a very happy holiday season. And here is what we are doing for Christmas Eve.

Speaker 6: Hi, guys. My name is Bec., I’m one of the producers and creators of the Into the Story podcast and on Christmas Eve this year, well, I think my Christmas will look a little bit different to past years, a little quieter than usual because I’ve just moved from Barcelona to Gran Canaria. So we don’t have the usual friends and family around to celebrate with. But usually on Christmas Eve for dinner, we do a traditional Venezuelan meal with my partner who’s from Venezuela, and we prepare things like hallacas which we make in advance. These are banana leaf packages with some dough stewed meats and veggies on the inside. Pan de jamón, like this ham bread. And ensalada de gallina, which is like this chicken and potato salad. And then usually in Venezuelan culture, the presents are opened after midnight on the 24th. But I might save present opening to the 25th morning, which is what I was used to growing up just to keep the magic of the Christmas story alive for my daughter.

Bree: Hey, everyone. It’s Bree 

Raül: Hi, I’m Raul

Bree: From AC. And this Christmas Eve, we are going to celebrate together with our two sons at home and we’re going to order in Chinese food. And we’re going to have a movie marathon. So we’re going to watch Love Actually. And probably The Grinch, which is our son Kai’s favorite movie these days. And we’re also going to…

Raül: What about the log?

Bree: And of course, we’re going to celebrate Caga Tiò.

Raül: We we went we went to pick up the log in the forest two weeks ago. We’ve been feeding this log every day with mandarins. And on Christmas Eve, and the kids hit, hit the log with stick with a stick and the log poop the presents under a blanket.

Bree: It’s a very, very interesting Catalan tradition.

Raül: Yeah, yeah really.

Bree: OK, so that’s what we’re doing this Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Raül: Merry Christmas.

Bree: And that’s all for today’s bonus episode. Para escuchar todos los episodios de Into the Story y no perderte los siguientes, suscríbete ahora en Spotify, Apple Podcasts, o en tu reproductor de podcasts favorito. OK, everyone. Until next time, we hope you have a good time, or at least a good story to tell.