Greco Family "Cooks" Book - Christmas Season/Advent

Christmas Season/Advent

Immediately following Thanksgiving and the days leading up to Christmas is called Advent. During this time, we participated in many activities at school centered on Christmas, such as concerts where we sang Christmas carols for the parents and performed for various other community events. I think the Brownies or Girl Scouts typically put on a pageant at church. We made a set of purple candles representing Advent. Each week leading up to Christmas, one of the candles was lit. I remember participating in many short plays depicting the Story of Jesus. Once, I was cast as a “lamb”. They kept telling us how important we were to be the animals guarding Baby Jesus in the manger, etc. But, no one wanted to be a lamb! My hope was to be cast as the Blessed Virgin Mary, but the closest I ever got was playing an angel. I felt so beautiful. I have pictures that still give me goose bumps when I see them. We spent the days just before Christmas making (and eating) holiday cookies. We tried to store (hide) them until Christmas Eve, but it was difficult. And, of course, we would always decorate a Christmas tree—when the tree was completely decorated, the last touch would always be adding the tinsel. My father insisted on one strand at a time (I still always have to include tinsel on our tree). Placing the manger on a white sheet under the tree, without the Baby Jesus in the crib, of course, made the scene complete. The Baby was added on Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve

     Christmas Eve was a big event. My memories are of celebrating Christmas Eve at Grandma Greco’s house. Before dinner, as each family arrived, they would place their gifts under the Christmas tree. I remember the women preparing dinner in the kitchen. The men would be eating the pizza fritto, sometimes called “fried dough” or Zapoli, dipped in sugar, as soon as the dough came out of the hot oil. The kids were sneaking looks and shaking packages trying to guess what each one contained and sneaking cookies from the trays that were supposedly put away until after dinner. My cousin, Mana, would have a bag of candy in her purse, and we depended on her to play a game with us. She would hide a piece of candy in one of her hands behind her back. Then she would show us both hands clenched in a fist. If we guessed which fist held the candy, it was ours! When she ran out of candy, she used pennies.

     Dinner would consisted of:

Pizza Fritto (pronounced pizza-fdeé-t) dipped in granulated sugar
Fennel or Celery dipped in olive oil, salt and pepper
--
Smelts (floured and fried)
Baccala (pronounced bah-kah-lah) or “dried salt codfish”
Calamari (pronounced kahl-a-mahd) or “Squid” in Red Sauce
Perch or Halibut (breaded and fried)

Pasta with Tuna Sauce
Broccoli with oil and garlic
Roma’s Italian bread
Salad with olives, celery, carrots, etc.
Oil and wine vinegar dressing
--
Red Wine
     Every family would bring their favorite cookies, and the combinations were colorful and delicious. There was a lot of laughter and talking. The men teased the women by chasing them with mistletoe. I loved it. Once, Santa Claus arrived and had all the children bright-eyed and attentive while each expressed their wishes for Christmas gifts. Uncle Sammy was the only person in the family (and the only person I knew) who owned a movie camera. He used these huge bright lights when he was filming. He was our rich uncle with the movie camera! He has saved some of those old movies with no sound— we’ve come a long way in video cameras!!

     Because we couldn’t eat meat on Christmas Eve, there were a lot of fish dishes. I don’t ever remember eating the fish. I think you had to be at least 20 years old before you tried any of that stuff. The kids ate the pasta, I think. We passed the dishes around the table (family style). The kids sat in the kitchen, usually with Aunt Julia. (She made sure we behaved.) The adults ate in the dining room. I don’t know at what age one graduated to the adult table. I never remember eating at the adult table, though. After dinner, you could find various bowls of goodies on the table to be eaten throughout the evening.

     Some of these were:
Roasted Chestnuts
Unshelled Mixed Nuts
Lupini (beans soaked in salted water)
Fruit

And, of course, plates of mixed holiday cookies such as:

Fried Bow-Ties
Ciamelles (pronounced chum-els)
Calgineet (pronounced cowl-gin-eat) or “filled horseshoe cookies”
Taralle (pronounced tód-dahl)
Raised Dough Knot Cookies
Pizzelles
--
Plus
Homemade Cordials, such as:
Marsala, Anisette, Rosorio, Peppermint and Creme de Menthe
(I’m told these cordials were made by buying alcohol and adding flavorings.)
--
     When we opened presents, it was complete chaos. Every year, the adults tried to make it more organized, but it always erupted into loud noise with wrapping paper everywhere! The ladies who were going to midnight mass had to get themselves all ready and made sure they remembered to fast from 9:00 p.m. on (three hours before they took Communion)—they usually got dressed up with hats and the whole thing! The ladies who were not going to midnight mass, washed, wiped and put away the dishes (forever) in the kitchen—(I don’t remember what the men were doing—maybe sampling the liqueurs and playing cards). The teenagers of the family were getting picked up by their dates and leaving for midnight mass at St. Anthony’s. I watched in awe of my good- looking older cousins and longed for the day I’d be able to go to midnight mass (with a boyfriend). Everyone else left Grandma's in time to get home and set out cookies and milk for Santa.

     Christmas Eve was held at my Grandma Greco’s house for many years. Once it was at Uncle Sammy’s house because he had a big basement, then at my cousin, Jim Roma’s. You can still find most of the family who live in, or who can make it to, Endicott, celebrating at Jim and Connie Roma’s house on Christmas Eve. Typically, everyone brings food—lots of it—while Jim contributes more than his share every year, I guess because he has the bakery, but he is also known to be extremely generous.

Christmas Day

I remember waking up early on Christmas day to a stocking for each of us kids filled with candy, and an unwrapped (How could Santa possibly wrap all the presents he delivered to all the children?) gift we had asked Santa Clause to bring. Those were very happy memories. Although Christmas Day was exciting, it was usually quieter than Christmas Eve— with church and visiting. The kids were always anxious to get home from church so that they could play with their new toys. We usually spent Christmas Day with my dad’s side of the family. It was equally filled with good food and cheerful family and friends. After grace was said before dinner, my Grandpa Dellos (and later my father) was known to recite the following toast in Italian:

*****

“Il pranzo senza vino é comé lámora senza bacci.”

Translated:

“Dinner without wine is like making love without kisses”.

*****