Winter Wonderland

Michigan, my Michigan, a.k.a. "Winter Wonderland" on slush-covered license plates, is the memory of Christmas my heart won't forget. Some white, some green, some grey, all cold. Those Christmases, now confined to the museum of my memory, live immortal as the hodgepodge of clashing cultures they were. But, for that, they no less instilled the universal festive sentiment of: "Everybody here? Mangia, let's eat!"

Christmas Eve was Noche Buena. Christmas morning was fried matzoh then Mass (Confusing? Don't). Christmas afternoon/evening, more Judeo-Christian free-for-all: communion wafers around the dinner table, followed by challah and turkey. Then Buche de Noel. "Never mind, just mangia!" The number of nationalities present when the extended family gathered was enough to warrant a UN chaperone.

Today, that tradition continues two thousand miles from my Michigan and though the scenery may be more English countryside and less Winter Wonderland, the sentiment is still the same . . . "Eat your bloody sprouts."

Feliz Navidad.