Oh Snow She Didn't!

So if we’ve no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
-Sammy Cahn

I have nothing against snow really, as long as I don’t have to actually leave the house when it happens. A snowy day, when I have nowhere to go and food in the house, is delightful. Add a cup of hot cocoa and a nice warm afghan to the scenario, and I couldn’t be happier with a wintry day.

Unfortunately, it has almost never worked out this way for me. When I have had to venture out in it, the sad fact is that snow has not been my friend. My misadventures in the snow have been so numerous and spectacular that I am not sure that they will all fit into one blog, but I’ll give you the short versions of a few of the stories.

There was my first trip to New York City, which was also my first plane trip. I was out of college a few years, and I decided to visit one of my college roommates who was living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan for a long weekend. We were walking the 16 city blocks from the Empire State Building (our first sightseeing stop) to the United Nations when the blizzard hit. Undaunted, we continued to the U.N. which was closed because of weather when we got there.

At that point, Midge and I gave up and spent the rest of the weekend having a very nice visit in Brooklyn. In the end there were 26 inches of show, a blizzard the likes of which the city hadn’t seen since 1946. Snow drifts completely buried some cars. The regular cabs weren’t running to Newark Airport – I ended up getting lost by myself in the New York Subway system and being delayed a day. Hey, at least I wasn’t driving.

I was driving one snowy day when I was about 9 months pregnant and my water broke at work. The people at the hospital seemed to think that it was important that I get there just as soon as possible. There were no cell phones then, and I was unable to contact my then-husband who was out making deliveries for his company. I drove myself the 30 miles to the hospital in the snow to have the baby.

There was the time that a co-worker and I drove to Erie on March 21st one year for a day trip to tour a state-of-the-art facility there. At lunch, it began to snow. Our hosts assured us that it was just a “little lake effect snow"- nothing to worry about. After seeing 12 cars off the side of the road in a 12-mile stretch on our way home on 79, we stopped at a little motel in Sandy Lake, PA. There were no phones in the rooms, and we only had the clothes on our backs, but there was a restaurant across the road serving all the homemade ham-and-cabbage you could eat for $3.50 and for that one low price they threw in dessert and a beverage. That made up for a lot of the inconvenience.

But the worst snow event for me, hands down, was when I was working for a quasi-military centuries-old religious organization with a social service mission, in a position that involved driving sometimes fours day a week throughout the western part of the state. I started the job at the onset of one of the worst winters in that decade, and I had already spent countless hours driving the company car over some absolutely miserable roads. I thought perhaps God was testing me, and when I survived that first winter, I had finally proved myself to be worthy of doing His work.

However, they weren’t done with me yet. The next winter they sent me and most of my co-workers in the Development Department to a regional conference at a center they owned and operated in New Jersey. It started to precipitate just as two co-workers and I headed out for NJ, where we should have arrived by about 11 p.m. I say “precipitate” because it wasn’t just snow. Actually, the snow was alternating with sleet, hail, and ice storms. It was not fun, but I went slowly and by 11 p.m. we had reached Carlisle, PA, about halfway to our destination. We spent the night there.

When we set out the next morning the weather had not improved at all. Several hours later we reached the town where the conference was being held. We were pretty excited and then we blew a tire, just a mile or two from our destination.

When we left for home a day or two later, the weather was even worse than it had been coming out. This time, though, the sleet and ice were coming down so quickly that the car’s defrosting system couldn’t keep up. For much of the trip, we had to pull over every few miles and chip away the ice from the windshield. It was fifteen hours later when we finally arrived in Pittsburgh, and I had driven the entire way.

I could go on but you get the idea. So, trust me when I tell you that it is not that I can’t drive in the snow. Oh, yes, I can, and I have. I just don’t want to – ever again, if I can help it. Can you blame me? When I hear a forecast for snow, I experience something akin to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I’ve stopped planning trips between November and March. I’ve accepted jobs specifically because they allowed me to minimize my commute.

And I keep the house stocked with hot cocoa and food in the winter.

Carol of the Smelts

It’s Christmas Eve, and today my family will gather together for our very own Feast of the Three Fishes. Yes, yes, I know that it is supposed to be Seven Fishes, and while we celebrate many other fish in our hearts, on Christmas Eve we only eat three-anchovies, smelts and shrimp.

You don’t have to be Italian to love anchovies, but it helps. My mouth is watering just thinking about the anchovies that will be prepared with oil in angel hair pasta, a long time traditional family dish that my husband has been refining and fine-tuning each year. I have never met anyone who is neutral about anchovies – you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. Despite the controversy, the anchovy has found its way into the menus of fine gourmet restaurants – it is an ingredient in the most traditional Caesar salads.

Not so the lowly smelt. It is often referred to as a salmon-like or “salmonoid” fish, but I don’t see the similarity. It doesn’t look or taste like salmon, and in fact the only relationship I can see is the fact that smelts are food to the salmon. Salmon is a favorite menu item in restaurants, but you will very rarely find a smelt dish on that same menu. I only enjoy smelts on Christmas Eve, but I look forward to having them all year. Despite all this, at our Christmas Eve celebration the smelts have been the subject of more thought, care and planning than any other item.

My husband, who nows whips up the best fried smelts in the world for my family each Christmas Eve, inherently understood and embraced the significance of the smelt in our family tradition. To celebrate that tradition, he penned “Carol of the Smelts,” sung to the tune of “Carol of the Bells.” He and I sing this for the family every year before we eat our Christmas Eve meal, whether they like it or not.

I give you "Carol of the Smelts":

Let's get the smelts
Let's buy the smelts
Gotta find smelts
Who sells the smelts?

We got the smelts
Let's clean the smelts
Season the smelts
Fry up the smelts

We cannot stand the
Smelts; they're too bland. The
Oil isn't hot, the
Hell! Why the bother?

Smelts are very, very, very yummy
They're a special present for the tummy!

Oh, let's just eat,
Smelts are a treat.
It's Christmas time.
These smelts are fine.

Dine, dine, dine - gone!

Our Miraculous Season - Eight Nights and Seven Fishes

The first time I observed Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, was the year I started dating my husband. My husband explained that we would be exchanging eight small gifts, one to be opened each evening of the festival. Like stocking stuffers, I thought, only they didn’t have to be physically small enough to fit into the stocking.

On the eighth night my husband opened his last present from me. It was a day-to-day calendar on a topic I thought he might like. Then it was my turn. In the gift bag he handed to me was a book on planning an interfaith wedding ceremony, and a typewritten note. The note explained that the eighth day of Hanukkah, which celebrates the miracle of oil that burned for eight days when it should have lasted for one, coincided with the eighth month anniversary of the miracle of our love, and asked me if I would consent to be his wife. He then presented me with the engagement ring. For this Italian Catholic Gentile, the “miracle of Hanukkah” now had a very personal meaning.

Each year, my husband, son and I celebrate Hanukkah (or Chanukah if you prefer). Each evening, my husband and I light the candles of the hanukkiah, which is a special menorah used for Hanukkah, and my husband says a prayer in Hebrew blessing the lights and the occasion. We each open a present. My son comes over one day during the eight-day festival week to celebrate, and brings a small present for each of us. He is happy to accept eight small presents from us.

A few years ago, my son arrived for our Hanukkah celebration carrying a beautiful poinsettia as a gift for me. When my mother was still alive, I would bring her a poinsettia every year at Christmas. My son remembered that and felt that it was time for that tradition to continue. Now each year I receive a Christmas poinsettia from my son as a Hanukkah present. We also decorate the Christmas tree that day, after enjoying a traditional Hanukkah meal of homemade latkes (potato pancakes) with apple sauce and sour cream.

My family has always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, which is the Feast of the Seven Fishes, a tradition among the people of Southern Italy and Sicily, where my grandparents were born. These traditions probably have their origins in the observance of the Cena della Vigilia, the wait for the miraculous birth of Christ in which early Catholics fasted on Christmas Eve until after receiving communion at Midnight Mass. According to my family, Christmas Eve had at one time been a Fast Day, when Catholics had to abstain specifically from eating meat. So, we celebrated Christmas by eating all kinds of fish, and exchanging presents. Midnight Mass was also part of the tradition, one we chose not to follow. No one really knows why there are seven fishes, and different families choose different fish.

When I was growing up, we celebrated the holiday at my Aunt Connie’s house, with the entire extended family. There were actually seven fishes, including squid, eel, shrimp, baccala (i.e. dried salted cod), clams, anchovies in angel hair pasta, and most importantly, smelts.

Over the years, as the family grew, and the kids grew up, my immediate family started celebrating the holiday on its own. We trimmed the menu to the three fishes we actually liked, which were the anchovies (in pasta and on homemade pizza), shrimp and smelts. Eventually, lasagna replaced the pizza, which was later replaced by my sister’s much-loved and anticipated stuffed shells. Meat is now a part of the meal, along with the fish.

The first year my husband spent Christmas with my family was also the first Christmas after my mother passed away. My mother had always made the fried smelts for Christmas Eve, which to me, anyway, was the most important part of the meal. I agreed to take responsibility for the smelts, but the person who really stepped in to save the smelts was my husband. My husband is a trained chef with a degree from the Culinary Institute of America. He produced fried smelts the likes of which the family had never experienced. He cemented his place not just in the hearts of my family but in our Christmas celebration as well. He also participates in the annual Family Grab Bag- exchanging presents seems to be the great constant in all our traditions.

Since we celebrate Christmas Eve with my family, we do very little on Christmas Day. We just relax, try to recover from all the fish consumption, and enjoy our newly acquired presents. One year, “Dreamgirls” was opening at a local cineplex on Christmas Day, and we decided that it was the perfect time to see it. We decided that we might like to get a little dinner on the way home, and found that a gourmet Chinese restaurant that we liked in Squirrel Hill was open. And so another tradition was born – we now celebrate what my husband always jokingly told me was a Jewish Christmas- Chinese food and a movie. The merging of the traditions was complete!

It’s all about miracles, really- this season in which we celebrate our various religious and ethnic holidays. Whether it’s the miracle of one days’ worth of oil that lasted for eight when the Maccabees reclaimed their temple, or the miracle of the birth of Jesus Christ who was born to save humankind, it’s about God giving people what they need to make it through. For our family, blending our traditions and eventually creating some of our own has evolved naturally, with love and respect for each other and our cultures. And that is our miracle.

May you and yours experience your own miracles this season.

Christmas Tree, O (Artificial) Christmas Tree

My parents were never exactly cutting edge when it came to keeping up with the latest crazes on the market, but they were practically the first in line to buy an artificial Christmas tree.

I was seven the year my parents bought the tree that would adorn our living room every year thereafter. This tree was truly spectacular in its tackiness. It was pure white, it rotated, and had a built in music box that would play your choice of “Jingle Bells” or “Silent Night.” It came with its own rotating color wheel and all-red bulbs and a red art deco star. They couldn’t have been happier with this tree- no fuss, no muss, and no yearly expense!

In a year or two, I decided that this tree was an embarrassment to all that was good and pure and Christmas. I begged my parents to buy a real Christmas tree again. Never ones to indulge an overly emotional child, they wouldn’t hear of it. Real Christmas trees are messy and expensive, they explained. They shed their pine needles all over the place, and then you just had to figure out how to get rid of the darn thing. But real trees are also green, I protested, and this tree was white. The artificial trees only came in white or silver, my parents said. Snow was white, my mother pointed out helpfully. She advised me to just pretend the tree was covered in snow.

The first time I had a real Christmas tree again was when I was a freshman in college. One day my friend Andy walked into my dorm room with a perfect and very real little Christmas tree, about 2 ft. high, in his hand. He went out and cut it down for me just because he knew how much it would mean to me to have a real tree. I was thrilled with the tree and grateful to have a friend like Andy. I lovingly decorated the tree with homemade paper chains and snowflakes, and even took it home with me for Christmas break, where it shared a space in the living room with my parent’s beloved white tree.

As an adult, I finally had that real Christmas tree I always wanted. Decorating the tree was an important part of our holiday celebration. These trees were everything that my childhood tree was not. They were as big as the room would allow, chosen carefully, and very, very real. I made all kinds of ornaments for the tree – stuffed, painted, needlepoint- and bought unique single ornaments. I called it my hodgepodge tree. Nothing matched, but it was beautiful.

There was only one problem with these trees. They were real. They were messy. The pine needles shed everywhere. We pricked our fingers as we hung ornaments, and the branches couldn't always hold the heavier ornaments. You had to water the thing and the water would drip and sometimes leave a mark on the carpet. It was a significant expense added to all the other additional expenses of the season. Getting rid of it was always a hassle. In turns out that my parents were, as so often was the case, right after all.

So it seems that I had wanted an artificial tree all along- just a green one that looked like a real tree, and with all my wonderful mix of ornaments. But my family was as attached to their real, green trees as my parents had been to their white artificial one. So I was stuck with a real tree each year.

After my divorce, all of my holiday traditions were up in the air, ready to be redefined. When I remarried, it became even more complicated. My Jewish husband obviously doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but I still very much wanted a Christmas tree in my house. After the shock of the idea wore off, my husband agreed to let me have a tree. However, he had absolutely no-preconceived notion about what a tree should be or how it should be decorated. It was entirely up to me.

I can’t even convey my excitement the day that we went to Pool City to choose our tree. Now I have the perfect, beautiful green artificial tree of my dreams. My son still prefers a real tree but comes over ever year to help decorate, and we use the same ornaments that once adorned the real tree of his childhood. And my husband still can’t believe that he has a Christmas tree in the house.