Before you call me a "Scrooge" or someone who just doesn't get the "Holiday Spirit", you should hear me out. Really. I'm just talking about what is on my mind at the current time. For those of you who read this regularly (all 3 or 4 of you), I know that I have bitched incessantly about the cold...sort of snowy weather, but aside from that...it just flat out, at this very moment...doesn't feel like Christmas.
((The Chief-my dad on Christmas a couple of years ago))
Of course, really it is hard to define what it "Feels" like...at least for me. For the past 10 years, mostly, it just means a chance to participate in "Italian Feast Night". To describe it here, may not do it justice because it truly is "The Biggest Eating Night of the Year".
"Italian Feast Night" is something that my mother started doing about 15 years ago. It just so happened that it coincided with Christmas. Ironically, we are a Jewish family who used to celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah. Now we just do Christmas. As I was saying. My mother used it as an excuse to "Break" with Holiday tradition and do something different. Boy, did she do different. Beginning with the mid-afternoon Antipasto spread...it just doesn't get much better. Mortadella, Cappicola, Genoa Salami, Provolone...mmmmmm, that is just the meat tray. Then you get roasted marinted peppers, marinated artichokes and olives, tomato salad...all done in homeade dressings.
Dinner, at least to me is always a bit anti-climatic. Sure, the spaghetti and meatballs and sausage and peppers are good and the years she made lasagna weren't bad either. But to me, the best part was the Antipasto spread.
Really, I can already begin to smell the garlic. Michelle made the peppers and artichokes already here in Cincinnati. It's killing me not to be able to eat them, but I haven't. I will be good and wait until Friday night and then...lookout.
The other difference is more recent. The past two years, everyone came to my house. Before that it was always at my parents, but they moved to the middle of nowhere North Carolina a couple of years ago. But they, my sister, her husband and kid, sometimes my aunt made the trek to my house. Michelle and I have a big banquet table, we'd line up the seats, pile another table with the food...and go to town. Really, I think the coolest part was probably the fact that I sat at the head of the table. It's hard to describe that feeling...I guess it's almost like a torch being passed, but it really, really meant a lot to me.
So now we prepare to go. We leave in the morning, Wednesday morning. Michelle, Daisy the Wonder Dog and I will pile into my Xterra early in the morning and make an 11-12 hour drive to Leland, North Carolina (near Wilmington). It's then, hopefully, walking into my mom's house, a house that I fully expect and hope will be reeking of garlic will the holiday hit me. Only then will it feel like the end of December. Only then will it feel like it does only one time...one time every year.
Merry Christmas to anyone who reads this along with Happy Hanukkah, Happy Festivus for the rest of us and any other greeting that would work.
As we finish and probably won't post for a few days, enjoy the Dinner scene from the classic Christmas Vacation: Thanks You Tube
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