Article: Christmas Eve, Southern-Italian-American style

I don't remember what we had for dinner the first Christmas Eve that Dan and I were married. But there is a photograph of me on the second one, a wine glass of skim milk in front of me (I was pregnant) along with a lamb chop on a gold-rimmed plate. A lamb chop is, of course, meat, and Southern Italians (I am the granddaughter of four) do not eat meat on Christmas Eve, they eat fish.

What must I have been thinking back in 1986-that I was a married woman, free and independent, unbound by tradition? I can't recall. But I do know that I took an unenthusiastic bite of the chop, turned to my (non-Italian, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) husband and said, "Never again. I can't eat meat on Christmas ...

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