Boomer Connections This Boomer's Life

Christmas has always been a special time for our family. There was always lots of delicious food, wine, desserts and family, of course. I was raised in an Italian household by my mother, an immigrant from Tunis, Tunisia, and my father, who was first generation American. His parents and my mother’s parents were all born in Italy. Many of our traditions were passed down from my grandparents to my parents, then to us.

Needless to say Italians love to celebrate around the holidays. The Italian tradition is to have seven fishes on Christmas Eve then go to Midnight Mass. The celebration was always wonderful! This was the time that I was able to see my aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings all in one evening.

I was always very close to my first cousins. There were 17 of us on my mother’s side. We grew up together in the same town, or close by, and our mothers and fathers got together often. We are generally the same age (Boomers), and, we married and had our children around the same timeframe. This allowed our children to be close to their second cousins as well.

I gave birth to my firstborn in 1983. She was the second baby born that year in her generation of cousins. We had five babies born to the first cousins in 1983 within four months of each other. Christmas started changing for us and our celebrations grew in numbers.

Now that we had children, I thought it would be fun to have Santa Claus pay us a visit on Christmas Eve while we were all together. One year when my daughter was about 3 years old, my cousin Paul played Santa for the little ones. All the parents would buy a “Santa” gift to hand out on Christmas Eve. This was a big deal every year and the tradition still goes on today for our grandchildren. Well, this one year, Santa came in and handed out the gifts as usual, the kids were very excited because at around 3 years old they were aware of him and understood the concept of Santa and Christmas presents. After all the presents were given out, Santa bid farewell and left so he could become Cousin Paul again and enjoy the rest of the party. After Santa left, my daughter in her 3-year old little voice said, “Mommy, Santa has shoes just like cousin Paul.” We were all stunned that she would notice the shoes.

My daughter always had an interest in shoes when she was growing up. I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised that she noticed that Cousin Paul and Santa had the same shoes. Paul’s shoes were gray in color, but the pants of the Santa suit were long enough that they were mostly covered. Only my daughter would notice that! After a good laugh, we had to make up some story to satisfy her curiosity about the shoes. From that Christmas Eve on, Paul always made sure he had on black Santa boots when he made his appearance to the kids! He has since “hung up his Santa suit” and the tradition has been taken over by one of my daughter’s generation of cousins!