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Christmas Eve

Christmas in an Italian family is like no other. It is all about family, fighting, laughing, loving, and eating. Most of those I loved have passed away, but the memories of this time cannot leave me. They are burned into me like an imprint.

When I was younger, the festivities would always start a little bit before Christmas Eve. Mama would bake a fresh batch of bread for the dinner (only on a Friday, naturally), and then use the bread dough to make a delightful treat called "fritz". Basically, it was fried bread dough with sugar sprinkled on top. She would also make a cookie from the dough with some sort of disgusting chocolate in the middle. It was a Christmas tradition, but I could not stand the things.

There was also the wait for the out of towners to come in. We'd all congregate at Grams's house and wait for Aunt Margie and Aunt Janie to finally arrive from Detroit and Harrisburg, respectively. Sometimes the kids would act as look outs, because that meant there would be new people to play with, new things to do, new stuff to examine. When they got there, we'd swarm down to their van and hugs would be given all around. I'd marvel at the change in the faces of my cousins, their aging reflecting what I could not see in my own. We'd carry the boxes of presents upstairs and put them under the tree.

Mama's house was not a very big place, but it did manage to hold all of us. She never used the upstairs kitchen, living room, or dining room, so all activities took place in the basement. Coming in out of the cold, you could smell the cooking sauce and feel the warmth of bodies and kitchen heat. You could hear them all talking, the words echoing off the linoleum. Down the rickety steps and to the right was the game room proper. There would be a long table in the middle of the room with all of the furniture pushed back to the sides. At the left hand end was a bar with exotic looking bottles behind it, but never in my life had I seen them used. At the right hand side was a small television, and the seat that was always Uncle Bill's seat at the foot of the table. I don't know why he always insisted on sitting there, but he did.

If you went left at the bottom of the stairs and left again, you'd end up in the small kitchen. Mama would be working away in the far left corner, wreathed in mist from boiling pots and barking at anyone who stepped too close to the cooking area. Behind her was a table that my aunts were allowed to use to make the unimportant stuff salad,

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