SILENT NIGHT, HOLY NIGHT

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The future

It is Christmas Eve, even though you may be reading this in the AM. There are no holidays that I enjoy more than Christmas Eve, even though for most people it isn’t a holiday. Yet I feel the spirit and the joy of seeing my family gather together for this important evening. It is a warm night of laughter and joy, good food and booze, tempered this year by the passing of two people I loved very much.

A couple of years ago, I was speaking with my Aunt Marie over the phone, and was asking her about the holiday coming up, and how she was spending it down in Florida, and in passing we mentioned someone who was joining my family at Christmas Eve dinner. She said that whoever would come to that dinner would really enjoy themselves: because the family is so warm and inviting to strangers and would make them feel welcomed. She related how her own mother-in-law once ate with us and felt so welcomed.

Aunt Marie

Uncle Frank

Well Aunt Marie passed on this last May at the age of about 91 or so, and she left us too soon. She was behind too many stories about my life and how influential she was in it. I will forever be grateful to her and my uncle Frank, who was a perfect couple in so many ways.  They were loving people, old-fashioned in their ways and proud parents. Good down to earth people that left a lot of love behind for all the family to cherish.

John

Then there is my brother-in-law John, a man who loved people unconditionally, without reservation, who embraced strangers and made them feel at home. He was very much a part of the family in any way you looked at it. He loved his family and in spite of being a little cranky like I am, loved to laugh. He was the brother I never had and needed. He was a model for me to live by all my years, even until his death this past November. It will feel strange without him at the table in his flannel shirt, trying to sing along with Luciano Pavarotti while eating a lobster claw!

But these are two people who seemed to bring out the family, its spirit and its meaning as a group. We all love each other and enjoy seeing one another. I don’t think I have ever seen in-laws become so acclimated and part of the family like they do in our gatherings. TLW (The Little Woman), Tom, Don, have that spirit too, and it shows, all part of what is a big wonderful family.

My kids, my sister’s kids, all look forward to the same holiday, and I hope that they can continue this wonderful tradition handed down by my ancestors and theirs. Every year it seems we have a new addition, sweet little souls that make up the future and will leave a past of joy and found memories.

This night was Dad’s favorite holiday. He loved the gathering of his kids and grandkids and the festive dinner table: complete with wine and laughter, the many plates of outstandingly delicious foods that constituted the Italian tradition of 7 fish from the 7 hills of Rome, made by Mom, as I marveled at all the work she put into it an she still had the strength to sit down and eat it too!.

I am grateful, that I lived with these wonderful people, have them in my life, and would never trade a moment of it for all the money in the world.

Me and Tessie, my older sister (much older)

Have a ‘Holy Night’ I know I will, it may not be silent, but it will be ‘Holy’.