Christmas Traditions

I'm finally done wrapping presents, have only a little bit of cleaning left, and I'm taking a break. I've music playing, currently White is The Winter Night by Enya, and it hit me: tomorrow is Christmas. And for reasons not quite so obvious, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. While Christmas is not my favorite holiday, it is extremely special to me.



In the Catholic Church, Easter is the most joyous and holiest of holidays, so it is with me, but Christmas evokes such amazing feelings of love and openheartedness. It is the time of year where it is so very easy for me to open my heart to one and all.

For as long as I can remember, Christmas has meant family and church; holy supper and midnight mass. I'm sure every family has their own tradition for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and mine is no exception. As a child, Christmas Eve day was spent with my Dad. He was a mechanic and owned his own shop. Every Christmas Eve he would hold a holiday party for his customers, and he offered beer, whiskey, soda and Boilo. Google Boilo. We have always made ours with moonshine. I remember the one year I made chocolate chip cookies for the party. That was the first year my dad poured some whiskey into my 7-up bottle and I drank with the guys. They were all old enough to be my dad, and they all looked out for me. We drank and played darts, and it was the only time in my life I've seen my dad get drunk. To this day, it is one of my best memories.

Holy supper was at my grandmother's house. She's passed away, now, but when I was young, supper was at 5:00 sharp, and walking into her house, everyone's stomach would begin to growl, it smelled so amazing. Homemade mushroom soup, fish, homemade sweet raisin bread and a lot of ethnic dishes. My mother has a smaller version of dinner now; she took over after my Babka died (my dad's mother). Dinner at the dining room table was loud, lots of laughing and talking and excited talk about when Santa would be coming. Because Santa came after dinner at Babka's.

My sister and I were talking about Santa the other day, about when we stopped believing in him or even if we ever really believed in him at all. And it dawned on me, Santa never visited our house, meaning my parents' house, but he sure visited our grandmother's. I don't know why there was a belief for one house and not the other.

Gift giving is a big thing in my family. Not in quantity, but what it means to share of yourself with another, the value and joy of giving. To the one or two of you who know me and of my seemingly "overboardness" of giving gifts, this is partly the reason. The joy of giving runs rampant in my family. Even young - seven, eight, nine years old - my sister, brother and I would give presents. We'd scour the house looking for things we could wrap and give as gifts, having no money of our own to actually buy something. We'd usually start early, too, in September and October, stashing our gifts until December. There was a lot of laughter and surprised faces.

This year my church is celebrating Midnight Mass. It won't be the same as the mass of my childhood, however. Gone are the days when young girls dress in red satin robes with red bows in their hair and take part in the midnight procession. One girl would hold the statue of the Infant Jesus, and the procession would end at the Creche where the priest places the Infant in the Manger, signifying his birth. Gone are the days of the choir singing the Christmas Kolendy, Polish Christmas carols. I have them, of course, and play them often.

But these memories live on in small ways, and I'm eager to pass them along to my son. It's his first midnight mass, and while he's excited to being able to stay up late, he'll also learn of my traditions and memories and why it's important to eat a little of everything at holy supper, and why we take a bit of straw before we leave the church tonight.

Tomorrow morning we'll open presents and eat a nice dinner. It won't mean much to me; by tomorrow morning, Christmas is just about over. I like it that way, to be honest. My way is better, I think.

I wish you the merriest, most blessed of Christmases.

A Book Recommendation

I finished reading a book last week called Red Planet Noir. If you follow me on Twitter, then you've read my tweets regarding the book and it's author, D.B. Grady (@dbgrady on Twitter),who lives in Baton Rouge, La. (I've his website listed, please visit when you leave here). Online, he's prone to self-deprecation and occasional geeky-ness which is funny and endearing, but make no mistake, he is a smart, intelligent writer. Other writing credits include political articles for The Atlantic, an online publication.

I'll be honest, when I first heard the premise of his book shortly after having met him, I was almost sure I would not be interested in reading it. Not by any shortcoming of his own, I wasn't sure if I'd like a part detective/part science fiction novel. I'm not a sci-fi kind of woman, after all. But then I read his articles, and I was impressed not only with his intelligence and skill with the written word, but also his ability to capture my attention. He drew me into his article on the ongoing war in Afghanistan, for instance, when I'd long since given up on understanding our role in the country.

By this time, I'd made up my mind to purchase his book when it was released, if for no other reason than to help support his writing effort. Then I read an excerpt on his website, and once again, I was hooked.



Red Planet Noir in turn scared me and excited me. It made me cringe and wince and mutter "Oh my God" more than once as I traveled alongside Michael Sheppard, the down, but not out, Private Eye from post-apocalyptic New Orleans, hired to solve a murder on Mars. Falling into the world Grady created, I found it, in turn, horrifyingly believable and fantastical. The story is fast-paced and multi-faceted, and the author brings richness and depth to even the minor characters as Mike makes his way in and out of trouble on the Red Planet.

Park Mickey Spillane and part Michael Crichton, Grady manages to bring both the past into the future and the future back to the past in his novel with clarity and humor. The futuristic world inlaid with Mike Sheppard's old-fashioned vernacular makes reading this novel a joy.

The book is available on Amazon.com and just about everywhere else. If you don't find it, ask the store to order it. It is a great read!