One Of My Favorite Family Christmas Traditions

One of my favorite traditional family foods for Christmas is English Trifle.  My family always has Trifle on Christmas Eve.  It honors our British ancestors.  It was also my Grandpa Dana's favorite.  My sister Amy isn't going to be able to be home for Christmas this year (she'll be reuniting with her husband who has been deployed for the last 6 months Yea!) so when we got together last week I made Trifle for dessert in her honor.

I actually made it a little bigger and created it in a punch bowl this year since we have so many teenage boys in the family.  Trifle bowls make them look beautiful too though.  We've made other Trifle recipies at times, but our traditional one is still my favorite. I thought I'd share it with you here:

Carpenter Trifle

10 ounces frozen raspberries
3 ounce raspberry jello
Dissolve in 1 1/2 cup boiling water and let jell in the fridge.

10 ounces frozen strawberries
3 ounce strawberry jello
Dissolve in 1/12 cup boiling water and let jell in the fridge.

2 3 ounce packages tapioca
Make according to package and cool.

2 to 4 cups vanilla ice cream
2 sliced bananas
1/2 large angel food cake broken into bite sized pieces
1/2 cup broken pecans
whipping cream

Layer jello, angel food, jello, icecream, bananas, more jello, tapioca, jello on top.  Serve topped with whipping cream and sprinkle with pecans. 

On my first Christmas away from home I was invited to celebrate with some friends who served a very similar Trifle for desert.  It was a Christmas miracle to me that year--like a love note from home.  Even though I wasn't home, Christmas was OK because I still felt connected and secure.