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Family Traditions: Celebrating the Festive Season with Petta Chua
Trees, queues, lists and wrapping paper are some of the things that Petta Chua admits to enjoying this time of year.
For her, Christmas is about finding calm in the chaos—from the joy that comes from long-lost reunions, to the comforting nostalgia of a home-cooked feast.
We recently spent a day with Petta and her family to discover how they celebrate the festive season, the traditions they keep and the ones they’re starting anew.
Tell us about this time of year with your family. How are you celebrating?
We stack on family parties. Christmas Eve is celebrated with my side, a loud affair, the kids run everywhere. My mum's side has a very distinct ‘cackle’ of a laugh. And when they’re all together it’s even brassier, a nostalgic sound. We eat, cackle, clink cutlery ’til late in the night and then drive to Ryan’s parents up the coast to wake up there for Christmas morning. I so look forward to the cosy sound of that drive, someone needs to make it a soundtrack: kids' gentle sleep sounds in the backseat, hum of wheels on the road, occasional click of an indicator. Peace.
We spend Christmas Day with Ryan’s side (a dozen grandchildren!). Ryan’s mum has incredible table setting style, a spectacular use of found material to create unique elegant and whimsical mélanges. Both a joy to eat and sit at.
What practices have become family traditions?
My favourite tradition so far (my children are young and we are still planting our seeds of ritual) is making our own Christmas cards. We are avid DIY card makers for every occasion in our house. Stickers, crayons, cut-outs from a real estate brochure, a leaf, a zoo ticket and a smear of dried Weetbix have all made it onto our cards. They are a collage of love and an unedited, unfiltered, brain dump—in the most beautiful way.
And food, food is so important. On Boxing Day, we typically make Popiah—a flat wheat crepe self-rolled and constructed at the table, filled with bamboo shoots, tofu, peanuts, cucumber, coriander and other fresh delights. We go to my dad's for this. It’s both delicious and has also become an annual test of how big my sister-in-law can wrap one. They’re typically meant to be about the size of a spring roll, she goes full burrito, with mild to temperate success. This year we are hoping for kebab-size gold. All the windows are open, La Niña be damned. If it’s rainy it’s a sleepy cacophonous Boxing Day, if not we laze into the night to the sound of crickets and make hazy plans to go to the beach the next day.
Another favourite ceremony is making spiced cookies, wearing new pyjamas and listening to Ella Fitzgerald’s Christmas carols. There’s something 90s rom com about it, and sorry to my future teenagers, but I think it’s going to stick.
What do you love most about this time of year?
I love this time of year. I love that warm December nights in my house mean falling asleep to the sound of the fan whirring, a squawk of a bat, and a laugh carrying from someone else’s celebration up the street. Sounds like joy.
