Monte

The holidays have almost come to a close. The table has been cleared, the dishes cleaned and put away, the guests have all gone home, and mom and dad are sitting in the living room moaning about how they ate too much.

Forget about the presents. The thing I love most about Christmas is the food. When I was younger, I use to think that everybody ate lasagna and fish for Christmas just as one would assume that everybody eats turkey and stuffing for Thanksgiving. A few years ago I overheard some of my coworkers talking about their plans for Christmas and someone mentioned having turkey and ham for dinner. My jaw dropped.

“You mean your family eats the same thing on Christmas as you do on Thanksgiving?”

What hell that must be! Turkey and ham two holidays in a row?

Traditionally, my Italian family has always had fish on Christmas Eve and lasagna on Christmas day, and more care is put into the food than the presents.

This year was no exception.

For Christmas Eve, the dinner began with baked clams casino, baked clams served on a half-shell with breadcrumbs, bacon, and roasted red peppers. We also had a delicious fish salad, a medley of octopus, shrimp, cuttlefish, squid, olives, capers, and fresh parsley tossed in garlic and lemon juice. Next up: linguini with clam sauce, and after that, a fish fry with catfish, shrimp, and scallops with homemade tarter sauce on the side!

There was desert of course, but who cares. You can eat cakes and pies all year round. Plus, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. I’d rather have another helping of fish salad.

For our Christmas dinner this evening, we started with the antipasto, a huge platter the size of a wagon wheel layered with salami, mortadella, capicolla, sopressata, ricotta salata, havarti with dill, smoked gouda, asiago, yellow tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cherry peppers, green olives, Kalamata olives, roasted red peppers, and pickled okra. Of course, this was all served with a plethora of breads and crackers.

But the most awaited part of the meal was, of course, the homemade lasagna. Over 10 delicious layers of ricotta, ground beef, and tomato sauce nestled between noodles which my mother and I made from scratch. This delicious gold was so melt-in-your-mouth good that my father, who’s recently had dental work done, was able to suck down two bowls of the stuff with little effort.

But Christmas hasn’t ended quite yet. After my shower, I think I’ll snuggle into bed with a bowl of leftover lasagna and watch Seinfeld reruns for the rest of the evening.

I love Christmas.