Christmas Eve in Bensonhurst

We all know how big Christmas Eve is. But do you truly understand Christmas Eve in an Italian family’s home?  It’s the biggest night of the year. Do you understand the fervor of Christmas Eve in an Italian Brooklyn family’s home? It is the night of fanaticism… The night by which an Italian mamma or Nonna live and die. You will never ever see a bad plate of food on an Italian's Christmas Eve table because the woman who made it would just kill herself with the biggest knife available. It would from then on be known as the night Nonna had an accident but never as the night that Nonna burned the scungili.

You come to that house happy, well dressed and ready to sit at the table until its time for midnight mass & then you had best believe you will be back at the table after mass to eat dessert. Ok… you get the picture.

Now picture it. Christmas Eve 1995, cold winter night, kids all excited, you and your closest 50 relatives sitting on folding chairs in Nonnis basement. Yelling and screaming at each other. In walks your cousin Paulie with his girlfriend. HA you knew this would be a great Christmas!! Because Paulie’s g-friend is 5’11”... 120 pounds of pure stripper perfection. Boobs bigger than mine & all of my cousins’ put together. Perfect little apple ass compared to our bowling ball asses. Her name is Tiffany.

Tiffany & Paulie (who looks so smug ya’ wanna smack him) approach the table & all the yelling immediately stops. All the men’s jaws drop & all the women’s too. My Uncle Angelo yells “Did you see the rack on that Doll” to which Aunt Thelma smacks him in the back of the head. Tiffany sits down and announces to my grandma that she does not eat fish & will we be having salad tonight? My grandma bites her knuckles (bad bad sign) and says “WHADDYA MEAN YA DON’T EATA DA FISH? WHADDYA EAT ON CHRISTMAS EVE?”, to which Tiffany responds “ham”. Grandma makes the evil eye sign (you guys know the one…. Dio got it from his Italian grandma) and spits at the ground. Turns to Aunt Cookie and says “whatsa he bringin’ the puttana in my house for?”

Now my cousin Stevie looks up for the first time from his enormous plate of antipast and says to Tiffany “Holy Shit don’t you dance at Goldfingers?” …

That was it. Bread is flying, wine is flying Italian curses that would make a trucker blush are flying. Grandma is yelling get this Bitch outta my house. Uncle Angelo is going “Oh yeah thought the broad looked familiar” It is sheer pandemonium.

Tiffany who obviously has been watching too many mafia movies thinks this is funny and starts to laugh. At which point Sofie (Stevie’s wife) jumps the table to attack Tiffany…

My nephew announces in the midst of this “Hey its 11:30.” That’s it. Everything immediately stops & we get up go to church… 20 hours later we are sitting back at the table eating dessert sans Tiffany.

That will forever be the year Paulie lost his friggin’ mind.