A [Late] Buon Natale Everyone!
My mom's family is a wonderful, loud, and loving group of mixed Mediterranean (North African / Persian decent) / Italian New Yorkers who immigrated from Sicily to New York City and eventually upstate New York. We came together over Christmas to celebrate my late grandfather's life and Christmas.
We're very proud to be Americans now, but we love to keep to our roots. Each Christmas Eve we cook a southern Mediterranean traditional feast, "Festa dei Sette Pesci," (English: "The Feast of the Seven Fishes"). In Italy it's called, "La Vigilia," simply meaning, "The Vigil." If you're not familiar with the Roman-Catholic tradition of fasting/the vigil-it is usually meant to be a time of abstaining from food (in our case red meat) in preparation of holy days. So essentially we cheat the fasting by eating seafood (Tuna Fridays was a thing growing up). We make up for the "fasting" with a huge seafood feast of seven different fishes. This is symbolic of many things such as 7 being holy number as well as Jesus being able to feed 5,000 people with 5 fish and 2 loaves of bread (5+2=7).
The wood shop from my childhood. Most of my toys, dollhouses, and furniture came from this shop made by my grandfather's loving hands.
Unsure if we would get snow or not=considering the unusually warm New York Christmas- I packed light, but everything was an item that could be layered and worn several ways-such as a scarf. Burberry is always my go-to in cold weather. Wear a scarf traditionally, as a shawl, or drape and belt it to create a whole new look. I also love my burgundy Ugg Boots that can be worn with jeans on any cold day or bundled up in the middle of Snow Storm Goliath.
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