Milk wine and Christmas visiting in Sri Lanka

Christmas visiting runs from Christmas Eve to New Year, and sometimes into early January. Close family visit first, often after midnight Mass or on Christmas Day, and friends, colleagues and neighbours follow through the week.

The custom mirrors Sri Lankan hospitality more widely. At Sinhala and Tamil New Year in April, Buddhist and Hindu families visit each other with sweets and milk rice. At Christmas, Christian families do the same with cake and milk wine, and many people of other faiths join in.

Visits are often short, half an hour or less, because there are many homes to reach. A family might make five or six calls on Christmas Day, and receive as many in return.

The heart of the visit is the tray. Christmas cake, dense with preserves, cashews and spice, is cut into small squares and wrapped in coloured cellophane or paper. Beside it stand small glasses of milk wine, often on a doily, sometimes with love cake, breudher, milk toffee or other sweets.

The tray is brought out as soon as visitors sit down. The host offers it to each guest in turn, starting with elders. Children are given cake and a soft drink, cordial or ginger wine without alcohol.

Many hosts keep a stock of wrapped cake pieces to send home with guests, who may collect a small pile of different families' cakes over the week and compare them.

Accept something from the tray, even if only a small bite of cake and a sip of milk wine. Refusing everything can seem cold. If you do not drink alcohol, it is fine to say so and ask for a soft drink, and hosts will not be offended.

Compliment the cake and the milk wine. Families take pride in their recipes, and a kind word, or a question about how the milk wine was made, is always welcome.

It is customary to bring something if you are visiting by invitation: a box of sweets, a cake or a small gift for children. Visitors from abroad who bring a small item from home are often especially appreciated.

Milk wine is roughly 15 to 20 per cent alcohol, and on a day of visits the glasses add up. Experienced visitors take small sips, leave some in the glass at busy times, and drink water between houses.

It is acceptable to say you have already had milk wine at several homes. Hosts understand, because they do the same rounds themselves. Accepting cake without milk wine is perfectly polite.

Never drink milk wine before driving. Most families who do many visits share a driver or rotate who drives, and visitors with a hired driver should not offer the driver milk wine.

Foreign visitors staying with Sri Lankan friends or in a homestay over Christmas are often swept into the visiting round, which is one of the warmest experiences of a December trip. Expect to be introduced to many people and fed in every house.

Lankan Stays & Trails can build a December itinerary with time in Colombo and Negombo, where Christmas visiting is most visible, and with a driver so that guests can enjoy the hospitality without thinking about the road.

Even without an invitation, visitors can see the custom from the outside: busy roads on Christmas Day, families carrying cake boxes, and church fairs selling the same cakes and milk wine found on the trays.

Sri Lanka's festivals are often shared. Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim friends and neighbours visit Christian homes at Christmas, just as Christians visit them at Sinhala and Tamil New Year, Deepavali or Eid. Many hosts keep soft drinks and alcohol-free sweets for guests who do not drink.

Muslim guests do not drink alcohol, so hosts usually offer them cake and soft drinks, never milk wine. Visitors should follow the host's lead and not press milk wine on anyone.