I WISH I WERE HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

[JustDee]

This Christmas should be the best Christmas ever, I have my oldest daughter, her husband and their young baby living with us, obviously my youngest is still at home and we also have our other two daughters who live in MA and NY coming home for the holiday. I should be full of anticipation and joy...but I am instead full of anxiety and a melancholy of sorts. I can't quite put my finger on it...at least I couldn't until I spoke to my sister and I realized that I have been missing the Christmas of my childhood.

You know the song, "over the hill and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go"? That was how I felt about my grandparents. For as long as I could remember their home was a place of comfort and stability. It was in my heart, my "HOME" for all intents and purposes. All of my best memories of my life are wrapped up in them and when they moved away to NM, it was never quite the same.

My earliest memories of Christmas are just so full of noise and joy. The smell of seafood cooking and laughter from every room. Something always on the tube, usually a parade or a football game or something special that was on... I never paid it much attention, it was just always on and someone was always watching it.

There wasn't a room that was empty and the tree always stood in the middle of the living room in front of the windows. I use to sit in front of it and watch as the lights flashed on and off. There was always gold garland and plenty of silver tinsel and multi colored lights, but not the mini ones, the larger almost egg shaped ones. And there were the "candle lights" that had some kind of oil in the tube and as it heated from the other lights bubbles would start to form and make the light look like it was flickering like a real candle. Then there were the hand made ornaments, wooden ones from a kit my mom bought and all the ones us kids made over the years were spread around the tree like prized possessions.

All of the gifts, over flowing under the tree, organized by family, coming so far out onto the floor that you had to almost walk over the sofa to get around them. All the different wrapping papers almost seemed to co-ordinate except for my uncle Tommy's gifts. For some reason his wife insisted on using the funny pages from the newspaper to wrap gifts. She thought this was a great idea...we all just thought it was weird.LOL

Every hour or so from about noon, my grandfather would yell.. "lets open the presents now!" and all of us kids would say "Can we, can we?" and all of the moms and my grandmother would yell at him for stirring up trouble... but he would still do it again and again and then he would laugh with a twinkle in his eye and say, "ok, ok" as if he couldn't understand what all the hub bub was about.

The smells coming from the kitchen were so wonderful. We are Italian so you could only imagine the scents that emanated from that stove. The first thing that was made were the zeppoles(zep-pole-lees), for those that aren't familiar, these are tantalizing little bites of fried dough dusted with powdered sugar. They are lighter then a donut but heavier then a funnel cake. mmm.. so good. and then there were these little honey balls(stouffelies). More fried dough...lol, but these were tiny little jewels that were doused in heated honey and then sprinkled with nonpareils(the multi colored ones).We would all fight over who was going to fry to zeppoles because if you were the one frying them, then you got the best pick of them as they were done.. quite honestly, I think more made it into our bellies then they did the table.

Once those were done being cooked, it was on to preparing the anti pasta. The antipasta always had all kinds of treats on it. Different kinds of salami, dried hams like capicola (both the sweet and the hot), different kinds of cheese, I can't recall the name of the one but it was like feta cheese and some others too. Then there were all kinds of olives and pickles and anchovies.

After the antipasta, was the pasta. This was usually spaghetti in some kind of fish sauce, most of the time it was crab sauce. The fresh crabs were cooked in the sauce but we didn't eat the crabs till later. We would also have a salad and bread during this course. Then there would be a short break and we would all be back at the table for the main fare.. the seafood.. mmmm.
There was shrimp, fried and scampied,( I remember from a very early age, helping to clean lots and lot and lots of shrimp, it kind of became my job), there were broiled bay scallops, calamari (squid), scungili (conch), crab and then some kind of fish. The side dishes (yes there were actually side dishes) were stuffed mushrooms, Stuffed artichokes & sauted mushrooms and onions, I think there was more but that was what I loved the most. It was all so good that you wanted it all and lots of it but of course you were lucky to fit even a bite of each into your mouth before the overwhelming feeling of being full would hit. It was ok though because there were always plenty of left overs.

Although the food was awesome what really made the day special was that we did it all together. That is what really made it so wonderful, from the youngest to the oldest, we were all included.

What I have been struggling with is trying to give my family that same feeling and I have been obsessing about the food being the same, but it isn't really the food that is important. I guess what I should really be focusing on is finding a way to make them all feel included. Starting traditions now that we are starting to have our own grandchildren so that THEY have the same happy memories..I'm still cooking all that food, but now I think I will make sure that everyone gets to help.
Merry Christmas everyone! OH, I thought I would pass on the recipes for the zeppoles and the little honey balls. I hope if you choose to make them, you will let everyone help (even if it is just to help eat them before they get to the table).

stouffelies

2cups sifted flour or moor
1/2 stick of margarin
2 eggs
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 cp sugar
honey
confetti candy
vegetable oil

mix together if to dry mix in an egg yolk if too wet add more flour.must be medium wet
seperate small amount and roll out a strand about 1/4 in thick and then cut of pieces in 1/4 in
incrementsdrop into boiling oil till golden brown and take out and drain on paper towel.
heat honey and drizzle over the honey balls sprinkle with candy



zeppollis

5 eggs
4tbs sugar
2 cups of flour
1/2tsp salt
3 tsps baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
1lb ricotta cheese
vegetable oil
powdered sugar

beat eggs until fluffy, then add all ingredients one at a time till batter is smooth. put in refrigerator over night.heat oil to boiling drop by teaspoonfulls in to oil.let them cook on 1 side till the roll over. dont put to many in at once or they wont be able to roll.after they are golden brown on all sides take them out and sprinkle with powdered sugar
enjoy!!

[photo2010]

This blog put me in a culinary reverie. Yum! ...and Merry Christmas :)

[Jim]

I vividly remember those big Christmas bulbs. They got really hot, too, didn't they?

Using the newspaper comic section as wrapping paper is a good way to recycle, but maybe doing it for birthdays would be more appropriate than Christmas.