In our final episode of Joy To The World we take a trip to Italy. Matteo and Ricardo tell us all about the wonderful Italian dishes that are enjoyed during the festive season and we find out about the special celebrations for New Year.

As we take a trip to South Africa, Aisling MacDonald is amazed by how hot it gets on Christmas Day and hears all about how James Swarbrick and his family always celebrated Christmas morning surfing!! James also shares the Christmas meal with Aisling and tells us about a delightful dessert they enjoy on Christmas Day. 

As we hear from our guest Nicole, The Philippines begin celebrating Christmas very much earlier than us here in Ireland.  The Christmas meal consists of sweet ham and cheese, and even though there are no chimneys in the Philippines, Santa can still enter the home!  It is a very important family tradition to make decorations together and to ensure you attend a certain number of masses.

Jette talks about her memories growing up in Spain and enjoying a Spanish Christmas with her family. There are a lot of celebrations there during the month of December, we hear all about these and how important it is to celebrate the festive season with family. Christmas markets and roasted chestnuts are also very popular across the country in December. 

We hear from Laimonas as he shares his memories of a very traditional Lithuanian Christmas on his grandparent’s farm and how he is keeping some of these traditions alive with his own family in Ireland. We'll hear about the twelve dishes on Christmas Eve along with the preparation and the blessing of the wafer by a priest before the wafer is broken and shared with family.

Episode 5 of Joy To The World stops at Brazil, a country of celebration at Christmas time, where getting together with friends and family is one big party. Aisling MacDonald's guests share all of the Brazilian traditions including the importance of watching mass, broadcast from the Vatican, and sharing a very important meal together at midnight on Christmas Eve.

In episode 4 of Joy To The World, our Christmas Journey brings us to France where we hear from Isabelle and Tanguy, who talk to Aisling about all the homemade food and how important that is on the Christmas dinner table. We also hear some very traditional French Christmas songs.

In episode 3 of Joy To The World we hear all about Christmas traditions in Ukraine. Our guests speak with Aisling about the importance of family and the music that forms part of a traditional Christmas. Oksana and Khrystyna talk about the songs and instruments that are played with Khrystyna singing Carol of The Bells accompanied by Oksana playing the Bandura.

In our second episode of Joy To The World, Aisling learns all about Nigerian traditions including how important it is to spread Christmas joy to family, friends and neighbours through gifting of food on Christmas Day. We also hear about the significance of mass on Christmas Eve.

In the first episode of Joy To The World, Aisling MacDonald meets with Joanna Michalska, who moved from Poland to Ireland eighteen years ago. We hear about the importance of the 24th of December, from the cleaning and the twelve meals to the waiting of the first star - the star of Bethlehem. Aisling gets an opportunity to taste some of the traditional dishes that would be part of a Polish Christmas Eve and gets to see some beautiful homemade Christmas decorations.