It is Christmas Eve and I have been planning for tomorrow's feast since before Thanksgiving. It would not be exaggeration to say that a large percentage of my thoughts for the past month and a half have revolved around planning for and imagining my Christmas Dinner Extravaganza. This year is an at-home year and I volunteered to host our urban family for Christmas dinner. I have dreamed up an Italian theme and proceeded to methodically and painstakingly engineer all of the details. The past two weekends have been consumed with pre-making almost 200 ravioli with Jax, along with a lovely steamy marinara sauce. The past three days have revolved around meticulous shopping for the very best ingredients at the farmers market and various grocery and specialty stores. Today started and ended with cooking joyfully in my kitchen -- soup and tiramisu. And now, all that remains is some prep work and hosting the Best Christmas Party Ever. Yum.
The tradition in my family, as in most families I am sure, has long revolved around food on Christmas. We start at my Mom's house on Christmas eve. This happens to be the birthday of one of my "other mothers" who is also Jewish. As I grew up in the woods in a small town in Maine, this means that Marjie never had the opportunity to go out for a nice dinner on her birthday, as everything is closed. So my mom has been hosting the candle-lit birthday eve party every year since I can remember. Around 7 or so we light candles everywhere and turn out the lights and wait for our guests to arrive. Neighbors trudge up the snowy path to our door, stamping boots and shedding layers as they enter. We gather and mingle and snack and sip tea and wine. There is always a birthday cake baked specially by my mom, accompanied by sherry, which is a favorite of Marjie's. To me, this event is the epitome of Christmas spirit. A dark, snowy and cold evening warmed by flickering lights and close friends and laughter. As the years have passed the faces have changed and now there are tiny children among the celebratees, and the party wraps up a little earlier. But the heart of it remains the same -- friends and wine and chocolate and celebration.
Christmas morning is punctuated first by coffee and juice on my parents' bed while we open stockings. This favorite ritual is followed by a leisurely pajama breakfast of waffles made in an old cast iron waffle iron over the gas stove. Twenty or so years of practice have allowed Jack to hone his waffle skills and have made this scattered and delicious tradition one of may favorites. Grapefruit, maple syrup from Vermont or Canada, yogurt, fruit, tea and coffee. This meal lasts at least an hour or two and most of the time our gift thank-you lists are sticky with syrup by the time we are done.
Breakfast and gifts transition in to preparations for the next, and final, stage of Christmas: dinner at the Block's house. This dinner became a tradition before I can remember and has a unique place in my heart as a marker of a true Christmas celebration. In the early afternoon we gather ourselves and our contributions to dinner -- invariably including butternut squash soup and cheesecake -- and head out into the cold for the 45 minute drive. Dinner at the Block's is special in that it looks very much like a scene from a Rockwell Christmas card, or a Martha Stewart photo spread. An old parsonage restored to New England glory, ladies in long skirts bustling with aprons in the kitchen, men with glasses of Scotch eating cocktail shrimp around the Christmas tree. The tree is always twice as large, full, and festive as any other tree. Dinner becomes invariably delayed as everyone pitches in, cocktail in hand and visits and catches up from the year before. 12 or 15 guests in the norm and make for a vibrant evening and a cosmopolitan conversation in every room. Dinner is served in full ceremony with all of us side-by-side around the big dining table. Plates and glasses with gold-leaf edges, perfect place settings with each piece of silver in its correct orientation. A toast by the head of household, most often including a Jewish prayer as well as a Christmas blessing accompanied by one of those truly good bottles of wine that are both luxury and luscious. The first course is the curried squash soup served in dainty soup cups -- smooth and warm and creamy and sweet. This is followed by a truly impressive platter of holiday meat -- crown roast, trussed turkey, roast beef -- and every side dish appropriate. Dinner lasts forever, extended indefinitely by stories, verbal sparring, jokes, and reminiscences. At some point the plates are cleared and a palate cleanser of frozen fruit salad is served. Perfect in its molded form, icy and sweet and lush with chunks of strawberry and peach, this has long been my favorite dish of the meal. After the chilled course we retire to the kitchen to form a brigade of dedicated dishwashers painstakingly washing and drying and putting away each dish and glass and pot and pan. The camaraderie of dishwashers is such that it is more a place to congregate and share stories than a place of work. Late in the evening we wind up our festivities with coffee and pie and fond hugs goodbye. This may be the most elegant meal of the year for me.
So, this year, far away from my family traditions I am forging some new ones of my own. My dinner tomorrow will be in the leisurely luxury spirit of the Blocks and infused with the raucous joy and fun of my urban family. Christmas ravioli, fresh farmer salad, flavors and smells and celebratory cocktails will all fuse to make a new Christmas tradition, perhaps.
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