Christmas Through New Eyes
Since having my daughter in 2019 my perspective, and heart, has changed towards Christmas. I have some good memories about Christmas from my childhood, yet, we lost our spark somewhere along the way and we didn’t follow any set traditions together as a family, besides for a meal together.
Now that I have a child, I feel like the joy of Christmas can return in a new and fresh way, and children have the most magical way of inspiring this.
This year she’s a toddler, and we’re working on deciding what our new family traditions will be. We are not religious, so we’re finding alternative ways to bring the magic, way beyond gifts. And, knowing our family, this will be centered around lots of food!
We will be making Christmas cookie trees for Christmas eve, decorating play dough trees, reading a Christmas story and writing a special message in front of the book every year, and for Christmas we will make pancakes. Pancakes in the South African way, are somewhere in between an American pancake and a crepe…
Eating pancakes with my family is one of my favourite child memories, it’s super easy and delicious, and just pure joy. So that’s the recipe I’d like to share with you these holidays.
My Hubby’s Pancake Recipe:
1 Cup Flour
1.5 Cups Milk
2 Eggs
1 Tsp Vanilla Essence
1 Tsp Oil/Melted butter
For the topping:
Butter
Cinnamon Sugar
Lemon
Anything else you could imagine…caramel, banana and whipped cream is a winner too, if you’re getting fancy!
Method:
Mix all the ingredients together, to form a smooth and rather runny batter.
Get your nonstick pan ready with some coconut oil/olive oil/butter.
Once it’s melted and your pan is hot, scoop in about a soup ladle full of your batter, pick up the pan and swirl it around until the pan is covered.
Once it starts to bubble, you can flip it around for another 30-60 seconds.
Then you pop it onto a plate, put some butter on to melt, top with cinnamon sugar and a squeeze of lemon.
Now roll it up, and tuck in!!
I’m grateful for a chance to experience Christmas through new eyes, and it truly comes down to quality time and special rituals with family for me. I hope you can find the time and space to connect with your loved ones this year, even if it means eating pancakes over Facetime.
Have a Merry (and messy) Christmas xx
Gente Portman