Christmas Eve traditions differ greatly from family to family. Some of my friends growing up used it as a night to finish decorating the tree, watch a movie, and order some Chinese food. Other friends saw grandparents and cousins that they wouldn’t be seeing the next day because of other family obligations.
Me? I’ve always had the privilege of having an Italian Christmas Eve. The day usually begins around 10am, when the smell of fish wakes me up from my sleep. Yes, fish.
It’s an Italian tradition to have seven different kinds of fish for the Christmas Eve feast and to abstain from meat. My family does not have that many, but we have at least four. And no meat.
For some reason, my house has been the fish house for as long as I can remember. My mother is in charge of making a huge vat of pasta sauce with fish. We call this fish gravy. In fact, we call all tomato sauce gravy, but I believe this is regional. Regardless, it smells so gross. Especially in the morning.
Once the fish has been cooked in the gravy and the squid has been stuffed (this is a job from which I stay as far away as possible), we head over to my aunt and uncle’s house, just down the street. Here, we meet with our extended family and begin our loud meal. Not only do we have several kinds of fish, we also have no less than three pasta dishes, stuffed mushrooms and peppers, and so much dessert it’s a wonder we don’t all roll out of there.
We eat in the early evening, probably around 4:30 or 5pm, and by 10 we eat again. It is certainly a holiday of food. When all the feasting is over, I return home. My home that will smell like fish for at least two weeks.
What kind of crazy yet lovable traditions do you guys partake in over the holiday season?
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Comments (5)
i totally envy italians.. i love the atmosphere they have around family and food and you can see the love all around.. and i love italian food! crucify me but i saw on jersey shore they would have dinner once a week together.. sunday night family dinner is an awesome idea!
@CrAdLe2daGrAve@xanga - As an Italian American who vacations at the Jersey Shore every summer, I do not take offense to you watching the show! :P Sunday dinners are a big deal for us, too! "Dinner" usually means around 2pm, but we're definitely eating for about three hours :) My family doesn't do them every Sunday, but it's always a special treat when we DO do them!
We do the Italian feast as well, we've cut back on the amount of food over the years, but still it's all seafood and pasta. But we start dinner around 6-7ish and break between courses we end up frying shrimp around 1 am after presents then have coffee and italian pastries after 2 am. I never leave the house before 3 am...lol For once a year it's so worth it!
@wyckdstorm@xanga - My family is the same exact way! I was stuffing my face with cannolis well after midnight. So yummy :)
We always have turkey on Christmas day because English people have it then, not on a thanksgiving type day. Also we have small bite size mincemeat pies (not the american kind where they try to make a whole pie out of the stuff.... ewwww) Pork pies with hot mustard from the tin to snack on before dinner, Dinner at about 2pm, and a desert called triffle which is cherry jello with ladyfingers (a sweet spongy cakey type thing) with layers of custard, whip cream, then grated chocolate and cherries on top.