Christmas #2

Ed note: Our phone/internet is currently out of commission --flood waters most likely -- so photos will be late uploading.

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A huge snow blizzard awaited us in Chicago – home sweet home! … and 2 days later it rained and warmed up so freakishly that the mounds of snow turned into flooding waters. Looking outside, I see mostly green.

Well, at least we had a White Christmas.

I was reminiscing with my mom on Christmases past, when we were young. We always went to Children’s Mass where I usually participated, and then we headed to my grandparents for the night, where at the end, my dad would wrap me and my brother in very large blankets and carry us out into the snow and into the car.

Nowadays, we don’t go to church and Matt hasn’t quite gotten the hint that I like to be carried out to the car in a warm blanket, so things have definitely changed.

But what remains the same is that Christmas Eve isn’t Christmas Eve if we’re not in my grandparents’ house, where the aroma of fish baking in the ovens, and of clams broiling in the broiler, and shrimp being fried in the fryer wafts through the air. It may make your clothes stink a little, but it’s a smell that always has warm memories.

Matt is getting used to the Italian delicacies of my family – after 5 years. He sank his teeth into the zeppole upon arrival and said, “I was waiting for this!” Zeppole is a fried dough, much like a beignet but we don’t eat them sweet. (although here is a Giada recipe I'd like to try) Next comes the baked clams my grandfather just a ½ hour before shucked in the sink and get topped with the special breading. Finally, comes the calamari – and once you eat calamari like this, the stuff in restaurants will be just a rubbery mess. I like mine with only lemon.

By the time we get ready to eat, it’s about 830PM. Italians only eat fish for Christmas Eve – although I am reading that this is mainly southern Italian (what we are). I hated fish as a kid so I always got fried shrimp, and we still have it on the table to this day.

We opened gifts around 10PM, and what had started as a “we need something for Tony to do” has turned into Tradition. It’s the tradition of one of the grandkids to dress up as Santa and dole out the gifts. All of the grandkids have done it except me, and my cousin Andrew didn’t want to do it this year. So that meant … yep, me. I was Santa and I’ll tell you that beard is itchy. My cousins played my merry band of elves, and I was reminded that we need some new blood in the family.

Santa brought me a Hello Kitty robe and slippers, which I promptly put on after de-Santaing. But the big gift of the night was the 52-inch LCD TV that my mom, aunt, and uncle bought for my grandparents. Much better to watch CNN with.