Bringing the holidays together: stories, shared recipes, and easy ideas for mixing Hanukkah, Christmas, and even Scandinavian Yuletide flavors at your family table.

What happens when Jewish and Christian traditions come together in one kitchen? In this episode of Family Tree Food & Stories, Nancy May talks with Magdalena Dryberg, a Swedish-born Jewish mom who blends Hanukkah, Christmas, and Scandinavian winter traditions into one fun and meaningful holiday season.

Magdalena shares easy ideas for blending faith, food, and family memories, and how anyone can create celebrations that feel special for everyone at the table. You’ll hear about tasty holiday foods like latkes, jelly-filled sufganiyot, Swedish ginger snaps, blue cheese, cured salmon, and warm mulled wine (glögg)—and learn how her family uses these dishes to celebrate the light of the season across different cultures and countries.

Through simple stories, family recipes, and a lot of laughter, this episode shows that it doesn’t matter if you’re lighting a menorah or decorating a tree. What matters most is the stories you share, the food you enjoy, and the people you love.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

1. How Your Blended Family Can Create Powerful New Holiday Traditions

Hanukkah, Christmas, and Scandinavian Yule can coexist beautifully. Magdalena shows how families can merge Jewish rituals, Christian symbolism, and Nordic winter customs into a meaningful, modern, multicultural celebration.

2. Food Preserves Culture—and Even Helps It Evolve

Traditional foods—latkes, jelly donuts (sufganiyot), Swedish ginger snaps, gravlax, Jansson’s Temptation, glögg—carry the history of each culture. Cooking them keeps heritage alive even as new family traditions grow.

3. How Your Kitchen Can Hold Generational Memories

From Swedish copper pots to handwritten recipe cards and menorahs, Magdalena’s kitchen reflects the layered histories of her mother, grandmother, and mother-in-law. Listeners learn how objects and ingredients preserve identity.

4. Blended Holiday Foods Strengthen Connection

Unexpected pairings—ginger snaps with blue cheese, cured salmon with wasabi, Swedish molasses desserts—show how multicultural kitchens create new flavors, new rituals, and new memories without losing their roots.

🎧 What You Can Do Next:

If this episode made you rethink even one habit, hit follow, share it with a friend, and send us your funniest or most unforgettable etiquette story. Join us, Nancy and Sylvia, in future stories at Family Tree Food & Stories, where we explore the traditions, quirks, and conversations that shape how we eat, gather, and connect — because. . .

Every meal has a story, and every story is a feast.

Additional Links ❤️

• Lawry's Lemon Pepper Spice
• Recipes shared in this episode: shared by our guest, Magdalena Jengroth-Dyberg
• IKEA Glogg AKA Vintersaga
• Book: My Family Tree, Food & Stories Journal Awarded #1 New Release on Amazon
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About Your Award-Winning Hosts: Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely are the powerhouse team behind Family Tree, Food & Stories, a member of The Food Stories Media Network, which celebrates the rich traditions and connections everyone has around food, friends, and family meals. Nancy, an award-winning business leader, author, and podcaster, and Sylvia, a visionary author, lawyer, and former CEO, combine their expertise to bring captivating stories rooted in history, heritage, and food. Together, they weave stories that blend history, tradition, and the love of food, where generations connect and share intriguing mealtime stories and kitchen foibles.

"Every Meal Has a Story and Every Story is a Feast." (tm) is a trademark of Family Tree Food & Stories podcast and the hosts.