THE DRAPES SMELLED LIKE WINE
December 25, 1961
Southern Boulevard, Bronx NY
I hated collared shirts but was passable enough for a three-year-old attending a Christmas Day celebration at his grandparents’ house. A basement apartment. I don’t remember the rooms except the living room and the dining room. Both were large. The carpet was hard. The drapes smelled like wine, smoking oil, and old cigarettes.
My Uncle Joey walked in followed by my Uncle Mikey carrying a big piece of plywood and two saw horses. They set it up at the far end of the dining room table. A billowing tablecloth settled on the newly annexed table. It extended well into the living room. Seating for the kids was made from a commandeered coffee table. The apartment was crowded with aunts, uncles, cousins and people I couldn’t name before or since. Hugging, kissing, dancing—everyone talking with their hands. One could be blind and still not miss a beat: The warm vapors of J&B played with Aqua Velva and Chantilly, freshly baked bread and briny clams. Presiding over it all was the unmistakable perfume of tomato sauce with pork and beef, quietly bubbling in a giant pot on the stove. Grandma’s kitchen was tiny, but that didn’t stop the inexorable flow of what looked like the entire culinary output of Gravina marching out of it. It must have been a thousand degrees in there with the windows open. Nobody seemed to mind. We sat down, about twenty-five of us, and settled into a meal that lasted most of the afternoon. Nuts, fresh fruit, dates, chestnuts, and fennel were put out along with usual suspects of cannoli, sfogliatella, homemade cookies and strufuli. My brother and I snuck away into the living room and played with our battery-operated toys fresh from Santa. I think I passed out holding my brand new Robot Commando.
December 24, 1968
Bronx River Road, Yonkers NY
Dad got the folding card table from the storage room and added it to the dining room table. aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. I knew everyone there. This was seafood day for most Italians and all sorts were prepared and served at dinner: clams on the half shell and oreganata, king crab legs or colossal shrimp depending on the market, linguini with clam sauce, fried bacala, and the detestable pasta with red calamari sauce that stunk up the entire apartment. Jimmy Roselli sang from the 8-track—an opening act to the entertainment review. Everyone did some sort of act: singing, comedy, poetry. My cousin Louis was a tragically undiscovered performer who had a talent for theater, impersonations and accents. My favorite was the old Scottish curmudgeon, prone to fits of misanthropic rants, who then switched gears and waxed about the loves of his life: daughters MaryBeth and Eileen. J & B scotch and homemade wine flowed. My grandfather passed out into the Christmas tree. Tomorrow was Christmas. Same thing, times 10.
December 25, 1972
Blauvelt Road, Nanuet, NY
We hopped into cars and headed over the once proud Tappan Zee bridge into Rockland County, NY. Christmas took place at the home of my two favorite cousins, Louis and Grace Ann. Aunt Lena and Uncle Joe put on a hell of a show—second in excess only to my Mom’s. Dad brought his 8-tracks and a tub full of booze he called a “basket of cheer.” The food flowed into the night. My Mom brought a calzone filled with raisins, black olives, and anchovies, a specialty from her hometown. Aunts, uncles, their families and girlfriends and boyfriends filled the little bi-level. One could always tell who was Italian and who wasn’t by the looks on their faces as the food came out. It was the first time I could remember Grandma not making her Christmas butter cookies.
No one fell into the Christmas tree that year.
November 23, 1976
Bronx River Road, Yonkers NY
Thanksgiving. Same people. Same 8-tracks. Same arguments. Jimmy Roselli cum Frank Sinatra cum Lenny Dee cum Pat Cooper. My brother tried slipping in a Chambers Brothers tape but that didn’t fly with warden Dad. He was already pissed because the 8-track tape cut off “On a Clear Day” mid-song. Then the food. Soup, manicotti, the usual parade of clams. Then the turkey came out. Because what would Thanksgiving be without turkey? More debauchery, then naps. Then dessert. Much of the day’s chatter centered around my soon-to-be-married brother and his fiancé. Their friends came over to play gin rummy at about 9 o’clock. The turkey came out again along with everything else that escaped consumption earlier in the day. Nobody wanted to leave.
December 25, 1983
Bronx River Road, Yonkers, NY
The clam orgy disappeared, replaced by something nowadays called Italian wedding soup. This year, a giant tray of lasagna preceded a prime rib roast. The basket of cheer had dwindled into a bottle of Dewars and two half-gallons of white and red.
One long-distance call later and we were on the phone with Uncle Joe and Aunt Lena who recently moved to Arizona. They were enjoying the day with Aunt Vicky. She and Uncle Freddie were the original defectors to the land of cacti and lizards. Grace Ann was with them, this time with her new family. Louis was at points unknown.
Uncles Mikey and Joey came over for the day. No table extension was needed. It was the year my Mom started vowing to never host Christmas again. Too much work. The real Christmas tree was supplanted by a tabletop ceramic one with built-in lights.
November 23, 1986
Georgia Avenue, Yonkers
Thanksgiving at my in-laws. There was a November chill in the air but the apartment must have been 100 degrees. Me and Mare. Her sister and boyfriend and her parents. My mother-in-law added an extension panel to the table. There was something nostalgic about eating fruit cup from a can—it brought me back to summer camp and brown bag lunches. The turkey arrived along with mashed potatoes and green peas. The potatoes weren’t seasoned. It was sort of like eating whipped boiled potatoes. Prison food. I slathered nearly a whole stick of oleo onto a pile of the stuff. My in-laws were staunch oleo fanatics. We brought over a large box of Italian pastries. My parents spent a quiet day home with my sister. Mom was partial to Land O’ Lakes and Hotel Bar butter.
December 25, 1996
Deerfield Place Beacon, NY
The grand tradition continued, 60 miles from New York City. I heisted four large poinsettia plants from my office in Manhattan. I cooked the dishes my Mom and Grandma used to make. What I lacked in authenticity, I made up for with sheer volume. Our three boys were busy playing with my two nieces, my in-laws were chatting with my Mom and sister. I flew them up every year from Florida, where they lived about five minutes from my brother. Mom made focaccia and Christmas cookies. The dining room was tiny, so the kids ate in the living room on a Little Tikes table. After, I watched a football game on TV with my brother-in-law. I watched my youngest son asleep in front of the fireplace, new handheld video game still on.
December 25, 2013
Orr Hatch Drive, Cornwall, NY
December 25, 2013
Orr Hatch Drive, Cornwall, NY
We had our own card table now, but there was no need to set it up. Mare covered the dining room table with a tablecloth decorated with painted bulbs and holly.
I started making this thing called Timpano, a kind of Italian pot pie. Everyone loved it. My Mom called it “strange,” “different.” Filet mignons with green peppercorn sauce sat in the middle of the festooned table, flanked by a roasted chicken. Mare stopped eating red meat earlier that year. The array of gifts brushed up against the apron of the 17-foot tall tree. My mother-in-law looked lonely. I drank too much.
December 23, 2023
Orr Hatch Drive, Cornwall, NY
My mother-in-law flew down to North Carolina. My sister flew up. I had to pick her up at LaGuardia airport. She’d grown accustomed to being chauffered from the gate to the curb in a wheelchair. She had no known ailments. Mare and sons waited at home. No timpano. The fatted calf skipped town. Two roasted chickens stood in its place. We still ate in the dining room, it just looked a lot bigger.
October 7, 2026
Boynton Beach, Florida
My sons called to let me know they were spending Thanksgiving with their families in New York and L.A. I think turkey was on the menu. It was the first year I never asked what time everyone was coming. I stared hard at the electric stove. I grew up with gas.
November 23, 2026
Boynton Beach, Florida
I walked to the deli and ordered two turkey sandwiches. $22.76. A dollar more if you added cranberry stuffing. We sat at the kitchen table and unwrapped our dinner. It had no smell.
Wax paper placemats.
Bio:
Patrick Carella writes fiction and creative nonfiction about family, memory, advertising, obsession, and the strange dignity of American life. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gargoyle, Hobart, BULL, JMWW, Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature, The Eunoia Review, and The Hooghly Review, among others. He is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso and lives in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, with his wife and their pit bulls, who remain unimpressed by literary publication.
