A second helping of tradition, please

Being Frank, by Frank Ameduri

One of my favorite things about the holiday season is sitting with friends and sharing stories about holidays-gone-by. If you want to see a friend with an ear-to-ear smile, just get him or her started on an old holiday reminiscence.

For me, the best memories surround large family gatherings, and the traditions that made the holidays stand out from the rest of the year. We grew up in a fairly traditional Italian family, and we had a way of celebrating every holiday Italian-style -- which is to say everyone ate way too much rich food, drank too much wine and spirits and talked way too loud. It also meant that there were very specific rituals and traditions, though, and they imparted a special meaning to the celebration.

Christmas in our family lasted more than a week, really. It began with a long bout of baking and food preparation. In our house, the biggest baking night was the night of the cut-out cookies. It began as soon as the dinner dishes were cleared. Mom had usually prepared the dough earlier in the day, because it had to sit in the refrigerator for several hours before it could be rolled out. We'd roll it out and begin carving it up with cookie cutters: Bells, three different Santas, stars, Christmas trees, angels, snowmen, a train, a wrapped gift … all the usual. After the cookies cooled, we'd slather them with tooth-aching sugar frosting and coat them with sprinkles, colored sugars, cinnamon candies and those hard little silver balls that looked and chewed like BB's.

My grandmothers usually had an entire spare bed and several shelves in a spare room covered with traditional pastries like pizelles, crispelles, fig cookies, pizza rano, zeppole and countless other delights. I remember sitting in my grandmother's spare room just to smell the air. If someone could bottle that smell, I'd pay any amount of money for it now.

On Christmas Eve the family would gather together in a shouting, hugging, kissing mass of humanity. The kitchen was a constant flurry of activity -- of both the cooking and visiting varieties. A visit to the kitchen would almost certainly result in the chance to taste-test one thing or another. Eventually the old women would tire of walking around people, and they'd shoo everyone out -- for a few minutes.

Christmas Eve dinner in our Catholic family was a midday affair. There could be no eating of red meats or poultry, so there were lots of seafood dishes, all centered around the baccala (stinky cod). The deal with Christmas Eve in our family was that you had to figure out a way to eat 13 different things -- one for each disciple and one for Christ. The dinner conversation was a wonderful cacophony of intermingled conversations. Each person was usually involved in at least three different conversations -- and at least one of those was a heated debate, and one of them had to involve someone from the other end of the table. It probably looked like the scene right before a riot breaks out, but we never seemed to get lost in the chaos. All the while, plates heaped with food danced from hand to hand with the grace and dexterity of a world-class ballet.

After dessert and a round of card games, everyone would dress up for midnight Mass. It was not optional in the old days. After Mass, you'd think the evening would end, but things were just getting started. After Mass it wasn't Christmas Eve anymore, so meat was back on the menu. Break out the pizzas, and another round of card games. Eventually, the children would fall off one at a time, and somewhere in there Santa Claus would make his rounds. The gifts were only a part of the holiday for me, though, and a small part at that. What I enjoyed most was playing cards with the adults and getting to sip a bit of anisette.

Holidays haven't been like that for some time in our house; people have moved further apart, and many have left us for good, but those are the days I remember most fondly. Those were the days when the wonderment of childhood was still in full swing, and the traditions spoke to me of something bigger than myself. I was doing the same things my grandparents had done when they were children. Following those traditions was a way of turning back the clock, a way of living in another time, if only for a few days. You'll never convince me that such things are unimportant. The dilution of our traditions, I think, weakens our overall culture. I hope you have traditions in your home, and I hope you work hard to perpetuate them and hand them down. It's those things that link one generation to another that give purpose to the insanity of our modern lives. I hope we never forget that.

Frank Ameduri will share his Pizza Rano recipe with anyone who asks. It's the least an old Italian kid could do.