Ghosts of Christmas past

Until her extreme old age, my Italian grandmother lived in Irish South Buffalo. We lived 38 miles north, but went to see her each week. The most important pilgrimage of our year was on Christmas Eve. You wouldn’t have dared skip it even if you wanted to.

A holiday that spans nearly fifty years ends up with a mishmash of traditions. My grandmother, who didn’t drink, once sent my aunt to the corner liquor store for a bottle of Old Overholt rye whiskey. It reappeared every holiday. My uncles and father, who did drink, instead quaffed Southern Comfort Manhattans until they were squiffy. It probably helped them tolerate the caterwauling of our Christmas play. I never got to be Mary; I have too many girl cousins.  However, I could racket along the high notes on “Oh, Holy Night.” That was the sweetest revenge of all.

In my childhood, my grandmother served baccalà and anchovy crispelles because Christmas Eve is a fast day for Catholics. There were also ham and Brussels sprouts because this was America. We had struffoli and cut-out cookies and a birthday cake for an aunt. Later, when our family grew to outsize proportions that was replaced with lasagna because you can make it in advance.

My mother and aunt confessed they hated the smell of frying fish. “Nobody likes baccalà anyway,” my mother said. Well, I did, so I took over frying. It always disappeared. My own children now make it, but it’s one of the few things I still remember how to cook.

Late December is peak season for Buffalo’s notorious lake-effect snow, and the south half of Buffalo is where the winds sweeping off Lake Erie usually concentrate their fury. It was a mayor from South Buffalo, who in the teeth of a blizzard told us to, “go home, buy a six pack of beer, and watch a good football game.” (That meant any team other than the Bills, who were 2-14 that year.) One year, it blizzarded so badly that my then-new husband and I struggled to make the ten blocks from our apartment to Grandma’s house; another, we plowed our way down the Thruway to Rochester with snow over the bumper of our minivan. I miss that kind of weather.

That was before downstate governors started closing the upstate Thruway in bad weather; it was just assumed that drivers knew their own limits. Anyways, Americans back then had big families, and we kids were packed together in our snowsuits in the backs of station wagons. I don’t think we could have frozen, although the question never came up.

Inevitably, we were late for Christmas dinner. When we arrived, our snow clothes were piled in a mountain on my grandmother’s bed. One year, my infant cousin slept peacefully underneath them before my aunt remembered where she’d left her.

Because my extended family was devoutly Catholic (we were not), the party broke up in time for Midnight Mass. Back then, you could buy milk from streetside vending machines in South Buffalo. There was one on South Park Avenue, casting a solitary glow on the silent soft snow. My mother saved her quarters for this last Christmas Eve stop. We then headed home through the deserted streets, windshield wipers and flying snow lulling us to sleep.

Later, I rejected my unchurched childhood and started going to midnight services myself. My grandmother grew too feeble to stay in her own home. Eventually, as is the way with all of us, she and most of her children passed on. My cousins and I are grandparents now. My own kids are busy on Christmas with families of their own. I’ll see them later this week.

Wherever you are, whatever your traditions, may this be the most magical of holidays for you.

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