I grew up on the Southwest Side of Chicago in the late ’50s, and for the longest time my brother Steve and I were the youngest kids in the family, so Christmas was a great time for both of us. The tradition was that we would go to my aunt’s home for Christmas Eve dinner, along with all the aunts and uncles and cousins. It was a big turnout.
Steve and I would watch as the gifts under the tree grew and grew. The tradition, of course, was that we all had to have dinner first, clean up the dishes and then go back to the living room to open our gifts.
You guessed it–eating dinner took forever. For the dinner setup, there was always an adults’ table and a kids’ table. Years went by and the dinner tradition faded away, and I never did get to sit at the adult table. After dinner the older cousins got to walk around the neighborhood and sing Christmas Carols and then they headed to St. Rita’s Church for midnight mass–they were lucky to stay up that late.
Christmas was a great time for my memory bank.
