On Being Family Member and Being a Friend

The second of many posts reviewing different aspects of my life.

I have a big family and I have lots of friends. If facebook is any indication (which it honestly isn't) I have nearly 900 friends. I feel blessed to consider so many people friends. Many of these people are guys I have met through my fraternity. On a completely selfish front, I love know that, through my own networks, I could find a sofa to crash on no matter where I am!

So some might say I have quantity, but not quality. This is not true! On this end, I feel even more blessed. An extreme example, I have friends who I have known since we were all 3 years old. I have no memories that do not include these guys being in my life. They are like family. There are also friends from grade school, high school, college and grad school that I consider true, strong and lifelong friends. They know who they are.

I rarely talk to these friends however. Maybe every couple of months I will talk to most of them, with my closest blood family getting a call every other week or so. I realize that unless people are actually physically close to me, I don't make a big effort to reach out. I don't like talking on the phone, nor sending long emails. (Heck, I barely even write these blogs, which are essentially letters to myself). Does this make me a bad friend? I guess it's a matter of opinion, but I can't get the quote out of my head:

"How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives." - Annie Dillard.

I spend my days with the people who are immediately close to me, not the people who have shaped my life. If anything, this is where I give myself most criticism as a friend and family member. Because, when it all boils down, all of these relationships are built on one thing: communication.

Pizza frite

I wrote in an earlier entry about my love of pizza frite and how important it is to me. Well, I had my husband take some photos of my brother and me making pizza frite this past Christmas and I thought I would share them. Enjoy my photo tour of one of my most personal food experiences.

You start out with some pizza dough. Make it yourself, or buy some from the store. Stretch it out and then cut it up into crazy pieces.

Be sure to make lots of cuts and holes! My brother and I like to find images in the frite (kind of like looking at clouds). Every year we seem to make at least one Christmas tree, one crab and a bunch of fishbones. I wonder what that says about the two of us.

Fry up the dough pieces in a skillet of oil. Flip them over with tongs and brown both sides. When you take them out, we always cool the frite on some paper towels to help absorb the oil.

And voila! Pizza frite! We spread the Christmas brunch table with all sorts of sweet condiments for the pizza frite: jams, maple syrup, honey and powered sugar. But my personal favorite is sugar with some salt mixed in. Or if I'm feeling adventurous, just the salt alone. What can I say? I'm a savory guy.

Let me leave you all with one last picture. In order to pump these guys out you need a conveyor belt of activities, with one person as cutter and one as fryer. Here you can see the teamwork in action!

Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. There are some traditions that my family would do every year and some we would switch out. In either event, there is a rhythm to those days which remain little changed from my childhood.

Christmas Eve
Sometimes my family would go out for dinner on Christmas Eve. This was always at some nice fancy place, kind of a quiet evening with my family. Those were special, but the real fun happened when we could have Christmas Dinner at Aunt A's house. She would have meatballs, lasagna, breaded clams, calamari, pizzelle, struffoli... The works. This wasn't just for my small nuclear family, but for the larger Italian side of my family. And that is a lot of people. On my father's branch along, I've got seven brothers and sisters. I'm an uncle 15 times over. I am also a great-uncle twice over! And likely my Aunt A's branch is probably even larger. Granted, most of my father's branch doesn't show up, but I think I am conveying the point.

Sometimes that night, we could go to midnight mass. Growing up we would go to the Dutch Reformed Church down the street. As my one brother and I got older, we stopped going. None of us were particularly religions. Just spending time together at home had more meaning for us. We would relax, unwind and have some eggnog. Now as a teenager, I tried implementing this "open one present on Christmas Eve night" tradition. Alas, that one did not stick!

Christmas Day
Obviously, as a child, this was dominated by presents. However, this was soon replaced by Christmas Breakfast. One traditional food that we would make every year was "pizza friet" which, as I understand it, means "fried pizza dough" in Italian. My brother and I would form a pizza friet team. One would cut the dough into interesting shapes, the other would watch the fry pan, flipping and taking out the friet as necessary. My mom would make this really interesting egg and cheese souffle, and sometimes we'd have this cinnamon balls baked together in a bundt pan. All this food definitely became more important than presents.

After we had a huge brunch, we'd then saunter over to the living room and tree. Hudson, my brother's dog was actually the most excited about presents. This dog knows which presents are his (by the scent) and can actually unwrap most presents. It's an amazing thing to watch. One person would be "Santa" and dole out the presents, and we'd make sure everyone got equal shares. As our family grew (with spouses) this part of the day would take up more and more time. We've since agreed to a reduced present load, but somehow we all violate it and go over.

After unwraping presents we'd usually all retreat to our own spaces and rummage through our new hoard of goodies. The afternoon would pass with us relaxing and having some down time.

Christmas dinner was on of two things. When I was smaller, we'd have a ham or turkey for dinner that my mom spent the afternoon cooking. But as I got older, my friends' parents would have my family over for Christmas dinner. These parents, by the way, owned a award-winner, internationally acclaimed pastry shop. So yeah, good food and all my friends were there with all our parents. My friends and I would compare note about presents and hang out. It was good times.


Two days of traditions and non-stop awesomeness with friends and family. That is why I love Christmas time.

Growing Up

I think I'm growing up. I am not longer quite as excited to visit my mom's house for Christmas. Now, let me preface this a bit. I grew up without my biological father. Family, and family traditions are of extreme importance to be because I was keenly aware of how delicate family life can sometimes be. To this end, I always looked forward to the two weeks around Christmas. My mother is a teacher and she would have those weeks off. My brother would either return from college, or have those weeks off (he's got an awesome boss). The three of us would all be together. It was so special for me. The friends I grew up with would be around. I felt known. I felt understood. I felt like I was surrounded by family.

Now, I have my own house. I am married and have my own family. Granted we don't have kids yet, but hopefully someday. We do have our needy cat though. It's a hassle to leave our house and find someone to water the plants and watch the cat. We have our own tree and our own holiday decorations. My brother has a wife now too. They have their own tree. My mom has even remarried.

So times has changed and I feel like I'm grasping at this romantic notion of my past. I still love my family and I still feel close with them. I can't imagine spending Christmas somewhere else. But I no longer hang around for two weeks. One week is the most I manage now and often times that seems like more than enough.