Lamb, not turkey, will be consumed at the Schroter family Christmas get-together.

Married for 25 years, Michael and Naomi Schroter and their 21-year-old daughter Sara see themselves as the ultimate Benetton family. He was born in England to a Czech father and Viennese mother both of whom are Jewish, she's Bermudian and Anglican. Sara sees herself as "eighth Czech, eighth Austrian, quarter English and half Bermudian."

What promises to be a very eclectic Christmas will be spent with 12 other family members at a relative's house in New Mexico.

"It has no religious connotations whatsoever," said Michael of the gathering.

"I will probably do tai chi and I will probably look to the native American gods and will probably do spa treatments and seek inner peace and all that kind of thing," says Naomi.

"My Christmas Day will probably be spent on the slopes - that's as religious as I get," her husband chimed in.

Sara: "No it won't. You will be watching football, you liar."

"I think what we are doing is essentially using the Christmas period as a get-together, rather than a traditional round the tree type, kill the turkey..." her father said.

Three generations of the extended family will share the New Mexico house, including the latest arrival, Myles, who may undergo his naming ceremony.

Naomi reels off the names of other relatives heading off to New Mexico. All of them are mixed families with Jews, Christian, Hindu, black, white, Canadian, American, African Indian, Bermudian and their offspring in all sorts of combinations. There's even a budding Buddhist in the family.

"As you can imagine we have a 21st Century extended family with different religions, different colours, different nationalities.This is the patchwork quilt of humanity. That's exactly what we are - we will be the Benetton family."

"Lousy clothes, good ideas," adds her husband.

"Most certainly we will probably have candles all around the pool as we sit in the hot tub in the spa. We will certainly sing Christmas carols and songs and drink eggnog. We will certainly share gifts, we will certainly share blessings," she continued. And as with all families, there will naturally be lots of laughs, hearty eating and a good deal of nostalgia and sober reflection.

Naomi's mother, who died earlier this year, will be absent from the Christmas table for the first time.

"This year we will be together in celebration of her and in recognition of Myles' life in that he recovered from a terrible illness around the same time."

The family came to Bermuda in 1991, so that Sara could get to know her Bermudian relatives and traditions.

"I think she's the one who shouts the loudest for tradition," said her mother. "You have to have a pudding with brandy sauce and you have to have a ham and it's very little to do with religion. It has to do more with the tradition of the family gathering together and sharing of presents."

Naomi, who worshipped at St. Mary's Anglican church in Warwick, was exposed to Jewish culture long before she met her husband as a student in Toronto, Canada.

"I didn't convert," she says of the decision to marry outside her race and religion. "There wasn't any pressure for me to convert. I felt I went through my conversion when I actually lived with a Jewish family in Toronto and they taught me virtually everything I needed to know out being a good Jewish housewife - how to make chicken soup and all the rest!

"They were truly into family - the extended family gathering around the table, the breaking of bread, the sharing of gifts... That's what attracted me to the Jewish - not so much the religion - but the cultural aspects of it."

"I'm very positive (about my mixed heritage)... I get double holidays," said Sara. And she has no plans to convert to any religion. "I'm anti-established religion."

While Bermuda's Jewish community has grown considerably in the last ten years as a result of the growth of international business, it remains among the smallest of the Island's religious communities. Many are non-practising, but for those that do practice the religion the community organises gatherings of Judaism's three major holidays, Channukah is probably most well known by non-Jewish people, falling closest to Christmas.

"Passover is probably the best because we usually invite friends to come to dinner and we've had a wonderful collection of people who come and bring friends of friends who are not necessarily Jewish," said Naomi.

As one could imagine, this family's diversity makes for possibly volatile political discussions - PLP backbencher, the sometimes controversial Delaey Robinson, himself of mixed heritage, is a key member of the extended family. But partisan political discussions are not up for debate around the dinner table. at extended family gatherings.

Family comes first, the trio agrees. Says Naomi: "Family is first above religion, colour, politics."