My Christmas Story

Things have been so crazy here in West Hempstead between long work hours, Christmas preparations, and Engagements; it’s like a fun house. I came home from school only two weeks ago and I have not really had a whole day for just myself. That Wednesday, I wrapped gifts and went on a last minute shopping trip. Thursday and Friday of that week were long works days for me. I was back at my internship with Brussels Airlines and I felt like I had never left. I was doing mostly the same tasks as I had over the summer: debit memos, ARC reconciliation spreadsheets, and sending FedEx’s. On that Thursday, everyone was in the office: John, Margareta, Olivier and even Dave for a short time. It was nice that I got to have coffee with them before the holidays. My mom and I left so late from work that night that we stopped and had Subway for dinner. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Subway and I could eat it every day, but my mom is not the biggest fan and I felt bad that that’s what our dinner was. She seemed to enjoy her sandwich though. See, the thing about going to Subway is that when you have a teenage brother that is always hungry and he happens to love Subway, you cannot just go there and get nothing for him. So even he had Subway for dinner that night.

Even though it was night the night before Christmas Eve, as we closed up the office on Friday evening for Christmas vacation, I played “One More Sleep Till Christmas” from Muppet’s Christmas Carol. That is one of my family’s favorite holiday movies. The days until Christmas Eve counted down as we worked as hard as we possibly could to have everything ready. On Saturday we put up the tree. It was quite the family affair. We played our Christmas music, had our normal spats occur around the project and ended the night with a delicious dinner of Chinese food; one of my personal favorites. It was a long day that Saturday. As soon as that tree was up and decorated and the floor was vacuumed, I took a shower and got into bed. Zzzzzzz…

Sunday night we wrapped Christmas gifts as we watched our classic FHE holiday films: Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Santa Clause is Coming to Town. Monday night was the home stretch. We had one more thing to do in preparation for Christmas Eve; baking cookies. We made three kinds: Hot Chocolate Snow balls, Spritz cookies, and cut-out cookies. The cut-out cookies are a tradition long before my time in the Fidis house. Every year, my mom makes the dough and we all make a tray of our very own personally decorated cut-out Christmas cookies. We have so many different cookie cutters from over the years: trees, stockings, teddy bears, stars, wreaths, trains, lighthouses, candle sticks, snowflakes and so many more.

Well, this year, cookie day was a day of celebration as well. My older sister, Rachel, came home for

Christmas break. Later that night I had taken a shower and put on my pajamas, my mom says that Warren (her boyfriend) is coming over for dinner. I thought that it was weird he was coming to our house for dinner rather than home to his family since it was kind of late. We have dinner, Boston Market, and Rachel tells us not to scurry off because she has news. She pulls out a black ring box and tells us that Warren asked her to marry him and SHE SAID YES!!!!! I always knew this day would come soon. I had a sneaking suspicion it was coming because for that entire week, I was hooked on one song out of all the songs on my ipod; “Marry Me” by Jason Derulo. Perhaps, it was a sign of the coming news. I am really happy for them. Warren has been a part of the family since that very first Memorial Day BBQ he attended two years ago. Maybe I started seeing him as family when Rachel brought him to the Patent Pending concert we attended together. Either way, I am really glad it is Warren that she is marrying. Although, he is like the older brother I never wanted (just kidding…but really though), I love him all the same.

Christmas Eve, finally! The day starts with our traditional struffoli baking or should I say frying at my Aunt Mary Anne’s house. We do this every year and I am pretty sure it has been that way since the dawn of mankind. It is an event filled with laughter, dough balls and heckling. See, the thing about Struffoli day is that my Uncle Michael is the fryer and quality control manager of our little struffoli making “business”. He tells us when we are cutting them too small or too large. This year, we had some interesting sizes. We had Frito and popcorn chicken sized pieces which obviously would not work. All hands were on deck this year. Normally, we have some people on stand-by because work is not their forte. This actually really helped to speed up the process and for that, I am sure, my mother is grateful.

Struffoli. Check. After that, we head back home and put the finishing touches on the house and start cooking. In Italian tradition, on Christmas Eve, you eat seven different types of fish in representation of the seven sacraments. We have fried eel, salmon, calamari, squid salad, baccala, shrimp cocktail and linguini with clam sauce. I am not a fish eater so my cocktail was carrots and celery with ranch dressing. My linguini with clam sauce was buttered spaghetti with cheese covering it like the snow on Mount Everest. Coffee, desserts and an hour later and we are getting our coats on for church. Midnight Mass is my favorite mass to go to. Why, because it is short and sweet at St. Thomas the Apostle. The priest gives us what my family and I like to call the bum’s rush. It’s like he is desperate to get to bed. This year we clocked the mass at 45 minutes. I was home, in pajamas and teeth brushed by 1:45 in the morning.

Christmas day, I got everything I wanted and some things that I did not exactly deserve. I will go more into detail about that later, but I just want to say that Christmas was amazing for me this year. It treated me better than I treated it because I know that I have lost the meaning of Christmas over the years. I just hope that one day I can find it again. Merry Christmas!