Christmas

When I was a kid growing up in Rhode Island, I never could understand all the fuss some families made about Christmas Day dinner. It always seemed weird to me. After all, who could eat a huge ham or turkey dinner after a gargantuan Christmas Eve feast?

Of course, when I got a little older, I realized that not everyone celebrated the Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. I thought that was weird too.

Turns out it's not weird at all. The Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes, is celebrated primarily among southern Italians. And Rhode Island, the state with the highest percentage of Italians, is home to many southern Italians.

This centuries-old feast celebrated on Christmas Eve has its roots in Medieval Italy and the Roman Catholic tradition of abstinence. When Catholics abstained from meat on holy days, they typically ate fish. Why seven types of fish? Historians believe it may be symbolic of Roman Catholicism's seven sacraments. Why Christmas Eve? Because Catholics would await the stroke of midnight, which was the time for the birth of the baby Jesus. That also explains why so many Italians attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve.

Of course, it's not always easy staying awake after savoring a seafood dinner of epic proportions. Though most families enjoy classic southern Italian dishes such as fried smelts and linguine with white clam sauce, many families (like my husband's) have their own specialties, such as Gram's stuffed squid in tomato sauce.

Everyone I know espouses the virtue of a homemade Christmas, and I have to admit that when someone takes the time to make me something I am genuinely touched by the act and the sentiment that goes along with it. That said, have you ever decided to take on a project that grew so far beyond its original scale and intent that you regretted it? As my family and friends can attest to, I am famous for that kind of thing. But something about the holidays seems to blindly motivate me toward this type of endeavor year after year.

Like the time I decided to make “simple” cranberry wreaths just like the ones I had seen Martha Stewart make on her TV show. I bought the requisite Styrofoam forms from a craft store and what seemed like a bazillion toothpicks that would have lasted a family of four a lifetime, as well as several bags of the dark red berries and a few feet of nice green ribbon to make bows with. After going through the first two bags of berries, and Lord knows how many toothpicks, I took my permanently stained hands back to the grocery store to load up on more supplies. The check out girl just laughed at me when I handed her a fist full of pink bills and wished me good luck with whatever I was doing.

Twenty four hours later I was a mad man, half blinded from trying to push the toothpicks evenly into the form and wearing thimbles (or anything else I could find) to cover my sore fingers, vowing to complete the task that was now driving me crazy. I was possessed and in the process ruined a favorite shirt and an equally beloved pair of pants. After what seemed to me an eternity, I eventually finished. Proudly hanging the wreath on my front door, I stood back to admire my handy work.

Spending countless hours trapped in a cold, dimly lit basement -- that's what I remember about Christmas.

In fact, it's my favorite memory of Christmas. I don't remember gifts I gave or received (except for my pink Huffy bike in 1979), but I do remember making Christmas cookies with my mom, which we did together for 20 years. Each year, it was a massive project that began in the market, moved to the kitchen, and was completed in the basement.

After numerous trips to the grocery store to buy obscene amounts of flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and chocolate, we would bake for 4-5 days straight, making about 2,000 cookies (that is not hyperbole).

Everyone got a tray of our cookies, including the paper boy. It got to the point that people would make special requests of my mom: please put more biscotti or pignoli cookies on their tray.

My mom never complained; she had the patience of a saint. Even when I added baking soda instead of baking powder (which I did) or dropped eggs down the front of the refrigerator (did that too), she never yelled. She always said something like, "That's alright, honey. It can be cleaned up." Then we would start the recipe over again.

No one wants a face full of snow. But that’s what I had all too often growing up in those brutal Chicago winters. I always seemed to be in the middle of a blizzard walking against gale force winds – which is why I spent more time walking backwards than I did forward.

And no one wants to step into slush. But when I did, my mother would put my shoes in the oven. Usually about thirty minutes too long. My shoes would come out smoking and ruined, which was not unlike many of our family dinners.

And no one wants to be a poster child for static electricity. But the winter air was so dry that my hair repelled my brush, my pants clung to my socks, and touching anything would send enough voltage through me to light up Soldier Field.

Those were not a few of my favorite things. So when Christmas vacation would approach, I was pretty much champing at the bit to get out of Dodge.

But it never happened.