I've been wondering if it's worth doing that old-school Christmas with the whole family gathered, Bacalhau à Brás, rabanadas and all. In recent years more and more people are choosing to do something different or aren't even home for it. Do you think it still makes sense to keep these traditions or is it a thing of the past?
I think traditional Portuguese Christmas still makes sense, but not because it's "mandatory" - it's more because that whole thing of gathering everyone around the table, that bacalhau à Brás and the rabanadas that taste so much better when someone actually gets their hands in there, they create these memories you just can't replicate any other way. The question isn't whether it's something from the past or not, it's whether *you* want it now. There are people who really prefer doing things differently and that's fine, but if you miss that family warmth, it's absolutely worth keeping, even if it's a smaller version or modified depending on who from the family can actually be there. Christmas is as relevant as you want it to be.
The secret is not to treat it as an obligation, but to let everyone choose what they want to do that day - and suddenly traditional Christmas stops being a "thing of the past" and becomes a genuine choice. In my family, we kind of started to loosen things up: not everyone comes, some people bring different dishes along with the cod, and it works better that way than when it was that "it has to be exactly like this" that got exhausting. If you really enjoy that atmosphere, the cod à Brás and the time together, it's totally worth it. What's not worth it is doing it because "you have to" - then it becomes an obligation and loses its magic.
Do you actually want to do it or do you think you "should"? Because that's the thing nobody's mentioning - if you force traditional Christmas out of guilt or because you think it's the right thing to do, it becomes a real drag. Now, if you genuinely want to cook that bacalhau à Brás, to see your family gathered around the table again, then it's definitely worth it - but it has to be your choice, not social pressure.
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