Jennifer Love Hewitt Just Told Us the Christmas Eve Dinner She Makes Every Year in Honor of Her Mom

Jennifer Love Hewitt is a renowned actor, singer and writer—and a chocolate lover, as her recent partnership with Ferrero Rocher can attest. It's an iconic candy for the holidays, and Hewitt tells EatingWell that being the face of the brand’s new Add Your Golden Touch campaign is “the perfect thing to do.”

“Ferrero Rocher is just one of those brands that has always been loved and is loved by so many,” The Holiday Junkie star shares. “I’ve been putting them in my kids’ lunch boxes, and they’ve been loving to unwrap them. It just says ‘festive.’ It says ‘holiday season.’”

In this exclusive interview, we asked Hewitt all about her favorite Christmas foods—plus her typical fitness routine and her go-to breakfast.

Do you have any holiday traditions that you look forward to each year?

On Christmas Eve, we always eat tamales. I’m from Texas, so that’s a tradition that my mom started when I was little. So now we do that in her honor. And then [my husband] Brian makes, what we call “Brian’s Famous Christmas Cocktail,” and he makes it every year. We don’t drink it any other time during the year; we wait until Christmas. We have it when the lights are on the tree and that’s our little cheers to the holiday season. It just always feels special.

Any favorite dinner dishes on your Christmas table?

Brian also makes really good pasta during Christmas. Christmas cookies are also a big thing for us with the kids. They absolutely love that.

Favorite Christmas cookie?

I love an oatmeal raisin, which I feel like is not normal for Christmas, but I love it. And since I have so much chocolate in my house, this weekend I’m making a really good peanut butter cookie and pressing a Ferrero Rocher chocolate in the middle. I’m making them for a girl’s night, I highly recommend that.

What’s your typical morning routine and how are you able to adjust it to your needs during the holiday season?

Well, I’m definitely going to use this holiday season to get more into a routine—it’s been such a busy year. I do have my stair climber machine that I love; it’s my moment to either watch a documentary or listen to music and just have a mom breather. The kids are always home during the holidays and they need a lot of attention, obviously. So I definitely try this time of year to find 45 minutes to an hour for myself. But we also do family workouts. We start with a fun walking workout with music for 20 minutes, and then we go and we do rotations of weights and pushups. I feel like kids also have a lot of extra energy that they don’t know what to do with over the holiday season, so we make it a family thing.

What does your go-to breakfast look like?

My favorite breakfast in the entire world is so plain and boring: it’s a piece of toast with a little bit of butter and a little bit of Manuka honey. That’s it. It’s my favorite thing in the world with a cup of coffee.

What does “eating well” mean to you?

Lots of sweet potatoes, lentils and veggies. That’s my favorite stuff in the world.

Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.