A week after my daughter was born, I wrote her a letter. I used a word to represent each letter of the alphabet. Each word is an action I hope she chooses to take during her life. Here's what I wrote for the letter "O:"
Observe. Observe traditions, like eating seven fish on Christmas Eve... traditions are a huge part of who you are, and where you came from. Learn them. Appreciate them. Make them your own. Maintain them, while making changes to fit the times. That will make passing them on even more special.I wrote that more than four years ago. It's still true. It's come true. And will continue to be true.
Christmas Eve is the holiday for many Italian-Americans. More important than Christmas. It goes back to the old country. And my family is no exception. Our tradition, what makes this event so special, is the seven fishes. (Yes... it's fishes. This is one of the few instances where I will allow a grammatical mistake.)
We eat seven fish on Christmas Eve. But to tell you the truth, we don't really know exactly why. We're funny that way. Some say it represents the seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church. Some say the seven deadly sins. Others argue the seven days it took Mary and Joseph to get to Bethlehem. Then there's the seven hills of Rome theory, and the seven winds of Italy one.
I like to think of the Biblical significance of the number seven: three for the divinity plus four for earth. Seven is the perfect number, representing Christ on Earth. I'm not super religious, but this is the explanation I prefer.
Regardless, on Christmas Eve, we eat.
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| My parents "made" Christmas |
My parents made sure Christmas Eve was always special. This was their time to shine, and boy did they. The food and the gifts and the lifetime of memories. Ah, the memories... not all of them fond, mind you. You see, we're no Norman Rockwell family. We have our warts just like everyone else. There was the year my niece screamed bloody murder because we had accidentally skipped a part in the Nativity play she was producing (I was Joseph and my performance was spot on). There was the year one of my sisters nearly choked to death on a fish bone, requiring the Heimlich Maneuver to save her (the downside of eating nothing but fish). There was the year my dad's irrational anger surfaced out of nowhere and he threw a fit for the ages because whomever made the coffee had the nerve to make hazelnut (that's genetic.... hazelnut makes me mad too).
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| 1996: I slept through it (but look at all that hair!) |
Then there was the one year my dad wasn't there anymore. He suddenly passed away shortly after one Christmas, in January 2003. He had a bag full of newly purchased, heavily discounted Christmas decorations from Target in the backseat of his car. This was not a man who was ready to die. He was already planning next Christmas. He was continuing the tradition. He was adding to it.
That first Christmas Eve without him was painful. It just wasn't the same. Never would be the same. My mom, bless her heart, tried to recreate the same festive atmosphere. But how could you? She, along with the rest of us, was still heartbroken.
He was the one who prepared the antipasto. He was the one who filled the cream puffs. He was the one who wrote all of the clever tags on everyone's gifts. Yes, my dad wrapped all of the gifts. Everyone's. Four children, two of their spouses, four grandchildren (at the time), and of course my mom.
He was Father Christmas. One year, he had me convinced that times were so tough, there was no money for a new Nintendo. I was in eighth grade and that's all I wanted for Christmas. After we had helped my sister set up Christmas morning for my niece, I took it upon myself to write her a note from Santa. In it, I added a postscript. I told her to tell her Uncle Justin sorry about the Nintendo, it just couldn't fit on the sleigh. I was resigned to not getting one, and was actually fine with it.
The next morning, there was a Nintendo under the tree. My dad, holding the note I wrote asked me, "What do you think Santa meant by this?"
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| A lot of gifts... in bags |
That is my all-time favorite memory of Christmas.
To this day, my mom doesn't wrap gifts. She puts them all in gift bags. Still, she does write clever notes on them. Carrying on that tradition. The Peanut doesn't know any different. She just knows she gets a gigantic bag of gifts from Mema. And of course, loves it.
And so after that very sad, that very void Christmas Eve without my dad, things changed. The next year I decided to avoid Christmas Eve altogether and work. I actually volunteered so others could have off.
The year after that, my wife and I took over. We started to host.
I told my mom there were too many memories and expectations for Christmas Eve to continue at her house. That we would always be thinking of daddy anyway. And a different venue would do us good.
We had changed the tradition. And we added to it. We made it an all-day affair. Instead of cramming all of the fish into appetizers and dinner, we'd start at noon. Crab cakes, shrimp salad and mushrooms stuffed with salmon for lunch. Sauteed scallops, pasta with tuna and clams, and broiled lobster tails for dinner. (Did you count the seven fish?) In between, we open gifts and go to church.
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| Peanut giving Mema a frame with family pictures |
We've made our holiday, our holiday.
Every Christmas is still not the same. But it gets a little easier to bear every year. Still, it's impossible not to wonder, not to wish, not to miss him. It breaks my heart that my daughter will never get to meet her Popsie. It breaks my heart that her childhood memories of Christmas Eve will never include him. But he does live through me. Through us. Through the stories we tell.
Through the traditions we pass on.
If you'd like to read the letter I wrote to the Peanut that I mentioned above, click here. (but please vote for me - Justin - first!)
Judges Comments:
"What a wonderful story. I really ejoyed reading about your father and the amazing man he was and the wonderful things he did for your family. Seven fishes is a wonderful tradition! This was a great post and it was well written. "
Ericka, from Good Job Momma
"This is a very good look into what your family does. It is always nice to look at traditions and recognize them not as 'the same old, same old' but as a way of connecting with your past.
I've enjoyed watching your blogging skill improve over the course of the competition. This post and the way you've done the photos and staged the post is an excellent representation.
I would however, have clipped the post a bit shorter in length. Try to keep each post between 7-8 hundred words.
Still, a good example of your skill. "
Allison, from AllisonDDuncan.com
"Allison mentioned that the post should have been kept shorter, but I read it three times, and I don't know what you could have taken out and still left the post still having the same effect that it did. It wasn't hard to get through, and I don't think any of it sounded like you were rambling at all. When I gave you this assignment, you said that you were tearing up, just thinking about what you were going to write. Now, I see why. I am big on traditions too, and we've had a similar experience in our family, so I could totally relate."
Heather, from My Husband Ate All My Ice Cream