Christmas: A multi-city guide to celebrating the season of cakes and carols

The constantly evolving nature of festivals in a multicultural scenario has added so much more to family traditions

Many moons ago, Darlie Koshy, former director of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, told me about how, during the days preceding Christmas (Advent), his Syrian Christian family would give up dairy products and meat. And then, on Christmas Day, while in his own home there would be vattayappam (steamed rice cakes), boiled plantains and jaggery halwa, his mother-in-law had established a tradition of serving meen moilee (fish curry) using fresh karimeen (pearl spot fish) and curry leaves. This, alongside her “unparalleled duck curry” and appam, remains one of his fondest memories of Christmas in Kumarakom.

For me, Christmas is an