PORTLAND – “Survivor” host Jeff Probst and his girlfriend, former contestant Julie Berry, served up Christmas dinner at a soup kitchen before being spotted the following day shopping at a Target store.

Probst said the experience of volunteering to serve meals at the Wayside Soup Kitchen was a chance to bring some perspective to the “frantic” holiday season. “It’s a chance to remember how fortunate you are,” he said Tuesday.

He made the comments as he and Berry shopped the following day at Target in South Portland, where they mingled with customers and posed for pictures.

“We keep running into friends of hers every other aisle,” Probst said. The couple spent the holiday with Berry’s family in Gorham.

Probst is taking a break after filming the upcoming season of “Survivor.” Crew members get a couple of months off after shooting two seasons back-to-back, he said.

The last episode of “Survivor: Cook Islands” aired earlier this month. The next season of “Survivor,” filmed in Fiji, begins in February.

Berry was a contestant on “Survivor: Vanuatu,” which aired in 2004.