Christmas Eves Past

In honor of the lack of a "normal" holiday this year, I couldn't help but reflect on Christmas Eves.  I miss the giant gatherings, and the joy, but I'm grateful to be able to see some of my family, and look forward to when we can all be together again.  I'll get to writing about Christmas Day more at some other point (I did that years ago, and with a bit about Christmas Eve HERE, but for now, a reflection/memory train about my Italian family Christmas Eves, my gift to my extended Italian family this year (it beats a scarfette):

Christmas Eve

Power lines stretched, thick black threads embroidered against an orange sunset.  Pastel colored triplexes rose like vinyl beasts out of the asphalt as men with beaten briefcases, heads hidden beneath their hats, shuffled across Pennington Avenue.  Driving along, we would shout “Big Christmas!” at displays with colored lights and candles in the windows, our signal that there was something worthy of distracting attention from looking at the night sky, seeking out Santa. Christmas carols, Bing Crosby and the like, were the soundtrack as we turned and wound our way over the Passaic River and through the highrises, to Great-Grandmother’s house we went.

Pouring out of the car and into the cold, our breaths made small puffs of white clouds, and we cheerfully raced from the lot behind the house and up the back staircase, thundering feet announcing our arrival. Opening the door into the kitchen, the heat hit first, warm, moist, and rich with the smell of homemade gravy. 

Stepping in behind us, Dad would carry the mountain of presents for this, the first stop of three, while Mom expertly unraveled the scarves from around our necks, pulling mittens off and shoving them into the arms of our coats, lest they be lost wherever single socks and mittens go to retire.  

Glancing around the kitchen, the pink speckled vinyl squeaked as an old woman, my Nonon (great grandmother) waltzed to an Italian mandolin on the radio, sautéing sausage and hunks of veal and lamb that hissed in the dented silver pot.  We padded over to her, our fancy Christmas shoes slipping on the linoleum, to kiss her crepey skin and inhale the scene of Dove and talcum powder. Inside the pot, oils separated to create swirls of gold and copper in the bubbling red tomato sauce, and around the room, the women would gesticulate wildly, their hands playing virtuoso solos in the air.

I was the oldest, my sister the second, and our younger cousins were in the other room, already picking up the fancy wrapped boxes and crawling around on all fours.  This was Pop-Pop’s family, his parents, brother and sister-in-law Richie and Barbara, and niece and nephews.  My mom’s sister and her family were there, Nonon’s brother Ralph and his wife Jody, and somehow, miraculously, we all managed to fit around an ornate table in the dining room and a small, folding one in the living room.  

My favorite thing to do pre-dinner was run down the long hallway that stretched from the back room to the front of the apartment.  The floor had a brown and yellow diamond pattern to it, and was super slippery when you were wearing patent leather. It was a three story triplex, with NonNon on the second floor (where we spent most of our time), Uncle Richie and Aunt Barbara on the bottom, and some family we never knew on the top (my parents had lived there at one point, my grandparents at another- it had gone through several incarnations and had been in the family for many years before I was born). 

PopPop and the crew

When my mother was a child, legend has it that the older generations on my grandma's side of the family would tuck the children into the beds, and don their holiday finest.  My great-grandfather was a furrier (maker of fur coats, hats, and other accessories), so everyone was decked out in the warmest possible outerwear.  I'm certain there was gold jewelry (they weren't rich, but they had a few pieces that were passed down from the generations, and we Italians do gold jewelry right), and handbags stuffed with hard candies and tissues, as was (and still is) customary in women's purses.  They were shuffle outside to the giant cars of the 50's and 60's, and trek to Mount Carmel Church.for midnight mass.  After copious amounts of singing and hearty handshakes, they would return, wake the sleepy kids (who, mind you, did not have a babysitter- at least that’s the story I remember. My mom now swears some adult was left behind to watch the children)), and open presents in the wee hours of the morning.

In the 1980's, there was no dream of leaving the kids unattended (I don't know that we would have had the good sense to sleep through the mass- one of us probably would have woken in a panic and goaded the others into our own pilgrimage to either the church, or to the presents which, left unattended, would of course need to be opened with much haste).  Instead, we made due with massive dinners and present opening around sunset instead of sunrise.

Perspiration trickled down the window, catching reflected street lamps white and silver against the blackening sky. When it was time for dinner, none of the little ones could keep still, and I would watch the chair beneath my sister’s chubby legs rocked back and forth while she twirled her pasta (an expert at the ripe ages of five), occasionally slurping enough crab sauce to splay bits of sauce (gravy Grandma Bea corrected).  They stained her dress and stuck to her cheeks, like small insects crawling towards her eyelashes. 

I grinned at her, glancing over at the grown ups with their fancy china bowls and elegant napkins.  Strings of spaghetti peeked out like octopus arms over their dishes too, corralled by bread that broke apart, soggy and heavy with butter and gravy (Fare la scarpetta they call it when you mop up the sauce with a piece of bread.  I just called it cleaning your plate). 

There would be seven fishes served on Christmas Eve, first the aforementioned clam sauce, which would be devoured concurrently with an antipasto consisting of artichoke hearts, black olives (whose holes fit perfectly onto plump young fingers), red peppers, and tuna fresh out of a Bumblebee can.  This would be followed by mussels, fried calamari, and something stuffed with breading that I never quite figured out (by that time, I’d usually snuck away). As our tummies stretched and our legs begged to be released from their thick white stockings (that itched and pulled in all the wrong places), we children would slide under the table and out of the dining room that rung with the sounds of laughter and punctuated with words we didn’t understand, but recognized as from “the old country”.  

Depending on our mood and if someone’s sibling was napping, we would hang out in one of the rooms on the left side of the apartment. My favorite was the back room, where the bedspreads covering the matching twin beds were white, with knots of embroidery on them. They seemed so thin to me, like they couldn’t possibly keep you warm (maybe that’s why it always felt like the heat was turned up to a hundred).  The beds were always made, and usually covered in polyester and rayon pyramids of coats that threatened at any moment to topple, the slippery materials not the most structurally-sound piling constructs.  There was always at least one threatening to pull the rest to the floor, and Grandma’s fur, a brown, soft shell, carefully placed off to the side. I would occasionally burrow into the pile, tired and full after dinner, and sometimes manage to fall asleep before someone younger would cry, or older would wonder where I had wandered off to and pull me back into the frey.  

Next to that room was the blush pink bathroom, with pink and white checked floor, and matching bubblegum toilet, sink, and tub.   After that came Nonon’s bedroom, with a small black and white television sporting rabbit ear antennas that needed to be positioned just-so for the 1960’s Rudolph to prance across the screen without the distraction of static.  We spent a lot of time on the floor, leaning against her bed and watching the reindeer’s nose begin to glow.

Next came the door to the front stairs, and the front spare room, which held sewing materials and things which didn’t fit into the kitchen, dining room, or front living room.  There was a basket filled with fruit made from glass beads and pins, pin cushions in the shape of ripe red tomatoes, and folding chairs when they weren’t being used for extra place settings.

The Christmas tree in the living room had wisps of tinsel hanging from it, and ornaments that shone gold and silver.  We would crowd around on the floor and the giant antique couch, whild Grandpa Charlie (my great-grandfather), and later his son, my Pop-Pop, would play ragtime or dixie, or the occasional Christmas carol. We tore through our presents in those days, knowing we still had two stops to go before Santa came to visit, and that at least at one of them, there would be desserts.  

The second stop on the list was to be with my Grandma Bea’s entire family. This was dubbed the “Cousins' Party” at some point, and grew larger as more and more cousins were produced.  I was again the oldest, and often tasked with babysitting the younger brood.  Depending on the year, we were either at my grandparent’s in Passaic, or at Aunt Glore and Uncle Joe’s place in Clifton, with the hidden back TV room off the kitchen (accessible through swinging saloon doors) and a basement with a bar that was perfect for hide and seek.  The party has evolved through the years, and is now in rotation between Mom’s place, or cousins Beth, Diane, or Janice’s. There were always piles of desserts- strufoli (honeyballs with sprinkles), cannolis, sfogliatella, thumbprint cookies, cakes. I learned the hard way one year to only try eating a small amount of these, lest your belly not feel up to the fruits and chocolate for the late night offerings.

The most prominent memory I have of these early childhood adventures was Santa arriving in all his glory, a red bag, thick Ho Ho Ho, and some tears from the younger cousins who were somewhat alarmed at the strange looking man in the giant black fireman’s boots.  When I was about five, he showed up while we were sitting on the couch, and with the help of my grandmother and Aunt Glore, ceremoniously presented my sister, me, and our cousins with the “it” gift of the year- Cabbage Patch dolls.  Never has a plastic face with pale yellow yarn hair been more exciting.  Karen was wearing a light grey tracksuit with blue embroidery, and her blond pigtails were perfect.  Nicole received Lisa, with red hair and freckles, and our squeals were decibels louder than young ladies were probably supposed to go.  But they were glorious, and while Karen’s nose was lost in an unfortunate battle with my mom’s springer spaniel about a decade ago, she still sleeps in my daughter’s room, and reminds me of the lengths grandparents will go to for their kin (Santa had a little help that year, as Bea and Gloria braved the mad rush at Toys ‘r Us to secure those dolls after the elves ran out of time to make one for every child in America).

My oldest models the scarfette

We would pass around grab bag gift presents, and those of us in the younger set took to copying the thick accents of our elders, oohing and ahhing and adding in some random adjective to the uwrapped present (our favorite being “ohh, ahh, how FLOR-al”, coined after someone opened a sweater with tiny flowers embroidered all over it). As a young child, we thought this was hysterical, and now, with children I’ve told this story to who now imitate it, I can see it was blackboard-scratchingly annoying. 

Traditions still abound, the most glaring being the passing of the scarfette.  This is a small, burgundy, blue, and green striped mini scarf that was picked up in the early 80’s by Grandma, Aunt Millie, and Aunt Glore when they visited the motherland.  Apparently, it was supposed to be some trendy fashionista item over in Europe, and they decided their daughters absolutely had to have them.  On Christmas, each proudly handed over a box, and the three recipients opened their gifts with much confusion, before doubling over in laughter. The next year, one of the scarves was re-gifted, and has made the rounds ever since.

At Grandma Bea’s (our third stop, where we would leave all the cousins behind in favor of just my mom’s immediate family), I remember blue carpet- a sea of blue carpet.  Short pile, worn down from years of bare feet running up and down the stairs.  My grandmother loved blue- so much so that the house, the wallpaper, and the carpets all matched. There was also carved antique furniture with golden cushions, the smell of oranges and mints (we needed something after the desserts, and chocolate and fruits were always on the late night menu), and a lamp on the organ that stood proudly next to the bannister, three white, carved nymphs we young ones giggled about when we were old enough to realize they were nude.  Pop-Pop would set a fire in the fireplace, allowing us to help wad up dried newspaper pages and push them under the logs, before lighting the corners with the long matches from a cylinder that sat to the side.  The edgest would curl up and burn bright white, red and orange for a few seconds before dissolving into ash, and igniting the rest of the paper, and eventually the sticks and logs, into a warm plume.

The couches smelled of my mom’s Tuscany perfume, sweet and still the only perfume that doesn’t make me sneeze.  The voices were tinged with what in modern day pop culture would pass for Sopranos-esque.  During my childhood, though, it was simply the way we talked- the Italian sound, hardened by years of conversation with other first- and second-generation immigrants living in close quarters in downtown Passaic.  We would tear into the last of our presents, these from our grandparents and cousins, and oh and ah some more.  Then, we would snuggle up on the couches until our eyes grew heavy, and then retire to the guest room upstairs (where, in more awake moments, we danced in front of the gold-leafed full length oval mirror).  Under a hand knitted purple and grey blanket (which I have in the guest room at my own house now), or a pile of coats (whichever we felt was warmer), we would drift off until Mom and Dad would pick us up, gently tuck our arms into glove-free sleeves, and carry us to the car, the strains of carols and good cheer echoing behind us into the frosty night.

Cousins' Party 1991 vs. 2018