Millions of Christians around the world are getting ready for Christmas. But what about non-Christians who want to partake in the feasting and the festivities? Well, in America, Jewish Americans have long had an interesting way to circumvent the religious aspect by heading to Chinese restaurants in what has become a decades-old annual ritual. Our New York correspondent Liling Tan looks into the roots of this tradition.

The famous Katz's Deli in New York City's Lower East Side is THE place to go for an authentic Jewish-American kosher-style dining experience.

JAKE DELL OWNER, KATZ'S DELICATESSEN "So we've been here 130 years. All the food that we make is done in a very classic way, the way that deli was done 130 years ago. So we do make all the pastrami and corned beef, matzo ball soups, all the very traditional Jewish cuisine that dates back centuries."

Just six blocks away, a different setting at Chinese restaurant MaLa Project, with dumplings and other side dishes accompanying their Sichuan dry pot speciality. These are two very different types of cuisine from two very different types of cultures. But once a year, every year, they converge at Christmas time.

AMELIE NING KANG CO-FOUNDER, MALA PROJECT "Surprisingly, we're really popular with the Jewish community during Christmas. After the first time we opened, the first Christmas that we had, we only had Jewish customers and Chinese customers and it took us a while to catch up on that."

MARC DEVENS CUSTOMER "Most of my friends in school had all their Christmas traditions with their families and so when you're part of a Jewish family and you don't have those traditions, you kind of come up with your own, and I think one of the more standard ones in Jewish culture is either going out to eat at a Chinese restaurant or getting Chinese take-out on Christmas."

LILING TAN NEW YORK "It's a peculiar phenomenon exclusive to the United States. For decades, Jewish Americans have gone to Chinese restaurants on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But how did these two historically 'outsider communities' come together, giving birth to this uniquely American tradition?"

For the historical record, we head to the Museum of Food and Drink in Brooklyn to meet with curator Jean Nihoul.

JEAN NIHOUL CURATORIAL ASSOCIATE, MUSEUM OF FOOD AND DRINK "This is one of my favorite menus that we have on our menu wall. It is a Jewish-Chinese restaurant that was located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. It's called Ginsberg and Wong, and this menu actually dates from 1986."

But the tradition has its origins in the late 19th century, in the early days of Chinatown, Little Italy, and Jewish Lower East Side, different immigrant communities that co-existed in close proximity.

JEAN NIHOUL CURATORIAL ASSOCIATE, MUSEUM OF FOOD AND DRINK "Little Italy was nice. However, it was a very Christian neighborhood, where restaurant owners were all Christian. In the restaurants, there could be little figurines of the Virgin Mary around or scenes of the crucifixion. And so that allowed the Jews to shift a little bit more towards Chinatown, where you'd go into these spaces and they're really not secular in any way, maybe a little like Kitchen God kind of a thing tucked away in some corner, but nothing overly prominent, overly visible, and it just provided a little bit more of a welcoming atmosphere."

But Chinese food is definitely not Kosher, which forbids pork and shellfish, and the preparation of meat and dairy together, definite Nos for Orthodox Jews. But Conservative and Reform Jews have more leeway. Reform Rabbi Joshua Plaut, who wrote 'A Kosher Christmas', explains.

RABBI JOSHUA ELI PLAUT AUTHOR, 'A KOSHER CHRISTMAS' "When immigrants came to live in neighborhoods in the Lower East Side near Chinese people, they entered the restaurants, they ate there, they abandoned their kosher dietary eating restrictions to eat food in Chinese restaurants. They called it 'safe eating', 'safe treif'. In other words, the pork might be inside a potsticker but since you couldn't see it, it was OK."

But also the lack of dairy in Chinese cooking also meant there was no mixing of meat and milk products, like in Italian food.

RABBI JOSHUA ELI PLAUT AUTHOR, 'A KOSHER CHRISTMAS' "And if you had lasagne it was layers of cheese on top of beef, so it was right there in front of you the violation of the Jewish dietary laws. Not so in a Chinese restaurant."

Another factor, Chinese restaurants have historically been among the few establishments open on Christmas, to help feed the appetite for this uniquely American tradition of sharing culture and cuisine. Liling Tan, CGTN, New York.