Lola's Christmas Traditions

Today's Guest Blogger is Lola from Lola's Diner!

When I was a child our Christmas Eve tradition was always to go in the early evening to my Italian grandmother’s house. The women and the children would play bingo and gin rummy for pennies in the basement while the men would play poker upstairs. We would snack on Sfincioni, Sfingi



and my grandmother’s homemade Italian cookies.



Sfincioni is like a cold Italian pizza or a cross between pizza and Focaccia. There is really no other way to describe it. It is served cold or at room temperature. It’s perfect for Christmas Eve because it can be made a day or 2 in advance. It gives the hostess the opportunity to join in the fun or go sneak off upstairs to wrap a few gifts. Sfingi is a dough ball dusted in sugar or cinnamon and sugar. It's sometimes referred to as an Italian donut.

At midnight we would all go to Midnight Mass. Some of the adults would stay back and cook for when we all got back from church. After church we were greeted with Italian sausage and peppers. I don’t recall us ever staying to eat.

Christmas Day we would open our gifts at home, then head to Grandma’s house around 1pm. Grandma and my Aunts would prepare a Ham, mashed potatoes (my mother made them, no one made them like she did), along with spaghetti, meatballs, Braciole, Italian sausage, Italian salad served along with Italian bread, olive salad and fennel. As the years passed the menu shortened. The first to go was Braciole, I’m sure because it was rather expensive to make. When Grandma cut out the spaghetti one year everyone was up in arms. Even though us kids thought it was peculiar to serve it along with Ham or Turkey, we did miss it when it wasn’t served.

All us kids sat at the kiddie table. We finished our meal as quickly as possible because there were gifts under Grandma’s tree for us. Gifts were opened after the meal. After gifts we had cake to celebrate the birthdays around Christmas. And of course, more Italian Christmas cookies.

Grandma even sent each and every family home with a shirt size box full of her Italian Christmas cookies. She must have baked for months to make all those cookies. There were Chocolate Balls with nuts and dried fruit bits inside frosted with chocolate icing, Sesame cookies, Spritz Cookies, tri-color biscotti with white icing and almond slivers, star cookies with dried cherry or jelly in the center, pecan fingers, knot shaped cookies with white icing decorated with nonpareils, tree shaped cookies and star shaped cookies with colored icing decorated with silvers balls, sprinkles, nonpareils or colored sugars.

Our traditions in our household aren't as elaborate. I still make Sfincioni for Christmas Eve and I prepare a veggie tray and cheese and crackers. This way everything is ready and waiting. It never fails, I'm always still wrapping gifts on Christmas Eve, so having the food prepared ahead of time is a big help. It's a must for me to watch Christmas movies as I wrap, it makes the whole process more enjoyable. I bake cookies, but I usually limit it to a couple of varieties. Each year I have to get more creative on where I hide the baked cookies because our son always gets into them and we end up with not even 1 for the Santa plate. I always seem to lose track of my Grandma's Italian cookie recipe before the holiday. I bake 2 quiches on Christmas Eve. One for Christmas morning and one for the day after Christmas. This allows everyone to enjoy the gift opening and it allows any of us crazy enough to shop the day after Christmas sales to just reheat a slice and run. Sometimes on Christmas Eve we'll pop over to Anastasia's Mom's house for awhile in the afternoon. We still put out a plate of cookies for Santa and a beverage, sometimes hot chocolate, other times eggnog. On Christmas Day after we have our gift opening and breakfast we'll go over to Anastasia's Mom's house for the big Christmas dinner, which is actually served mid-afternoon. Gifts are opened as relatives arrive.

Lola's Diner