It’s unlikely to come as a surprise that cookbook author and Food Network star Molly Yeh’s favorite holiday traditions revolve around—you guessed it—food. Think building gingerbread houses, eating latkes, and partaking in her friend Emily’s cookie swap.
“We bring like four dozen cookies and trade them with a few dozen other families, and then we’re left with a big box of all different cookies that we just keep on hand throughout the season,” the Girl Meets Farm host tells Parents.
But the mom of two, who is of Jewish and Chinese American background, says her favorite tradition is eating Chinese food on Christmas, a custom Jewish Americans started in New York City in the late-1800s.
“It’s just like a little bit of all of my cultures in one,” she says. “And anything with potstickers has my heart.”
Celebrating Chrismukkah With Her Family
The my name is yeh blogger and her husband, Nick Hagen, celebrate Chrismukkah with their daughters, Bernadette, 7, and Ira, 4.
“We’ll do Christmas with my husband’s side of the family, and then we’ll do Hanukkah with my mom, or with just our nuclear family,” she says. “Hanukkah celebrations are usually much smaller, and then Christmas is bigger with more extended family. And that’s OK; it doesn’t need to be equal.”
That’s her big tip for other families blending different holiday customs: Don’t feel bad if each holiday isn’t balanced.
“You’re definitely going to hear more Christmas songs than Hanukkah songs on the radio, even though all the good Christmas songs were written by Jews,” she shares. “What’s just important to me is that my kids know and are proud of their heritage, and it’s also important to me that they know how to respect and be curious about their friends who come from different cultures as well.”
Molly Yeh and family’s holiday card using Minted.
Credit: Minted
Must-Haves on the Holiday Menu
Along with digging into Chinese food during the holidays, Yeh says the winter is all about experimentation. The star, who lives on a fifth-generation sugar beet farm on the North Dakota-Minnesota border, uses the holiday break as a time to try new recipes that are a bit more involved.
“I have a big book of Japanese stews that I’ve worked through during winter breaks,” she says. “I like making big chicken pot pies. That’s my daughter Bernie’s favorite food in the world.”
Then, there’s “obviously cookies,” she says. “When it comes to holiday cookies, I prefer the classic, extremely soft cutout cookie to perhaps some more traditional flavors like gingerbread or peppermint. I just think that there’s so much fun in decorating them, and also I make a really good soft cutout cookie.”
Yeh wants fans to enjoy one of hers this season, too. She partnered with Minted to showcase one of her dynamite soft cutout cookie recipes—the soft cream cheese cutouts—along with her family’s adorable holiday card.
“This recipe on the Minted card has a very nice balance between sweet and tanginess, and then there’s a little bit of almond, which Marzipan is the best movement of the Nutcracker,” she says. “These flavors are nostalgic for me. They are a favorite amongst my kids, and they’re also just so versatile.”
Most importantly, these flavors evoke memories of decorating cookies with her loved ones.
“It’s not just about the cookie,” she explains. “It’s about the whole process around the cookie and decorating the cookies with my family.”
Tips for Holiday Cooking With Your Kids
Yeh is all about bringing her kids into the kitchen with her—especially during the holidays. She focuses on three things: cleanliness, practicality, and creativity.
“As a neurotic Jewish mom, my best tips probably center around cleanliness and hygiene,” she jokes. “So instilling into your kids from a young age that you clean as you go, you don’t touch raw eggs or raw flour without washing your hands right after. You try not to get the flour or the raw eggs everywhere.”
She also feels strongly about getting her girls to learn to weigh ingredients, rather than using measuring cups and measuring spoons. “Using the metric system is far superior to using cups and spoons, and it’s also just way easier,” she says.
She also wants her kids to know that the kitchen is a place for creativity. That means she doesn’t make them follow a recipe to a T.
“If one of my kids suggests, ‘Hey, let’s use brown sugar in the sugar cookies instead of granulated sugar,’ I’m gonna do everything in my power to say yes and to make it happen,” she says. “I want them to feel like they can make their own suggestions and have their own opinions about what flavors they like and don’t like, and then also be able to have the language to explain that too.”
Of course, her kids aren’t the only ones she’s been working with in the kitchen. As a judge for season 13 of the Holiday Baking Championship, which just premiered on the Food Network in November 2026, Yeh spent time with talented bakers competing for the grand prize. There was even an entire challenge centered around halva, one of her all-time favorite foods.
“It was so much fun to film,” she says. “We filmed it over the summer, so I feel like I’ve been in holiday mode for months now, and I’m not mad about it at all.”
Molly Yeh’s Tips for the Perfect Family Holiday Card
“I firmly believe that when you’re choosing a family picture for your card, it is all about the energy that you get when you look at the picture. There could be a hair out of place, or a shirt that’s crooked, or your kids are making a weird face or a weird pose. But I think that if you can feel the love and happiness and energy, those little things don’t matter.”
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