An Italian American Christmas Feast

My family has a lot of different Christmas traditions coming from different influences like Italian American culture. One example of that is my family always eats lasagna on Christmas. We usually have the course of meals that traditional Italians do, with bread and antipasto, an appetizer that usually has fresh mozzarella cured meats, olives, tomatoes, and other various cheese and vegetables coming first. The second course is a pasta, which on Christmas Eve is usually a spaghetti or similar type of pasta with the choices of either a white sauce or red sauce. On Christmas day, the pasta is always Lasagna. The final course of Christmas Eve is always the Italian-American tradition of the “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” In my family, These usually consist of Baccala (salted cod), Scungilli (a mollusk which is a delicacy found in Italian dishes), Calamari, crab, clams, mussels, shrimp. Many of these fishes however, are spread out across the meal such as clams in the white sauce, and scungilli, crab, and calamari in the red sauce, and shrimp included in the antipasto. The Baccala is always the main feature of the final course, with mussels usually on the side as well.

The last course of Christmas day is usually a brisket or roast beef. Between courses the family always watches Christmas movies like The Year Without A Santa Claus and listens to Christmas music, especially from classic Italian American artists like Louis Prima, Lou Monte, and Frank Sinatra. Then Christmas presents are always opened at 12 AM with the family, with the youngest kids going first as everyone in the family exchanges gifts as the little kids are playing. After that, sometimes it can go on for hours more, sometimes everyone leaves right after exchanging gifts, depending on the year. The next morning I would wake up with my brother and open presents, then exchanging gifts with my immediate family. Later in the day, more family comes over for Christmas Dinner, which is much less involved the Christmas Eve. One that lasts after Christmas day, is the Italian tradition of keeping the Christmas tree up til January 5th, known as the epiphany, or little Christmas.