Some old family traditions die very hard and sadly....

 For the very first time in my life, we will not be celebrating Christmas Eve the way I always have...  

This year, due to a number of things, I will not be preparing our traditional 'Feast of the Seven Fishes. We had even managed to maintain it with friends through all of the covid business. This year, for a variety of reasons, everyone is either planning on being somewhere else, has other family in town, or is too sick to come out and play.

Sometimes, I'd prepare it like in the picture above, like a Zuppa di Pesce, other times family style on platters . That was usually for the biggest gatherings when the full family was together. 

What are the 7 Fishes of Christmas Eve dinner? Whether you do it this way or not, this dinner traditionally involves seven fish: clams, mussels, halibut (I prefer Cod), shrimp, anchovies, calamari and scallops. I can almost smell this from my picture. 

PS: I brought that platter back with us from our last trip to Italy. If you're ever in Deruta, Italy, you have to visit their pottery works  there. There are dozens of factories in the town, making fantastic dinnerware and pottery.
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We'll save the topical shit for later. Maybe...

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They made a movie that's sorta/kinda/not really about it a coupla years ago - it's somewhere between smarmy  and too cute with a little 'Hallmark movie with an attitude' thrown in. Only reason I'd ever watch it is because Joe Pantaliano is in it. If ya wannna see the trailer, click on the picture above.

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Times must be tuff when ya gotta sell your Jesus...
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Every year around now at Christmas/New Year's time down in St. Barths (a VERY snooty little froggish island in the Caribbean) they have this 'show me your little dick' contest of the world's billionaires and their megayachts. I swear to God I'd rather have glass shards shoved up my ass than ever be anywhere even close to these dooshtools and their over-sized egos, but that's just me. Even the people that crew on these boats are jerkoffs - so much so they have a couple of bullshit TV series based on their miserable, subservient lives. 

But I digress, the only reason for mentioning this is that the boat above - the 'Christina O' - had made port on St. John a number of times when we lived there. I actually got to meet the new(ish) owner one year in a bar in town. He was a funny old Irish dude who ended up picking up the tab for everyone who was there that afternoon. 

Anyway, I digress again. The boat was originally a Canadian Navy mine sweeper beautifully converted in to a mega-yacht cruiser by a Greek Shipping tycoon. You ole' timers (like me) will recognize this boat 'cause it usta be owned by Aristotal Onassis. Get it now?
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All over American yesterday people were readying for a record-breaking Christmas weekend, with temperatures in places the coldest ever recorded and blizzards making travel in some areas impossible. 

It will be the coldest Christmas Eve ever in Tallahassee, Atlanta, Pittsburg and Philadelphia, forecasters predict. More flights were cancelled on Friday - 5,259, as of 7:30pm - than on any other day of the year, with Seattle airport the worst affected. Chicago O'Hare, New York's LaGuardia and Detroit's airport were also hard-hit. And millions of people were without power, as the grid was knocked out in cities across the country. 

Nashville recorded below-zero temperatures for the first time in 25 years, and thousands were without power for swathes of Friday afternoon. Particularly hard-hit was Buffalo, New York, where weatherman Dan Russell  shared terrifying footage of the blizzard. 'Conditions in downtown Buffalo are hellacious,' he said. 'I've covered many winter weather storms through the years. This is about, if not the worst I've ever seen! A true blizzard with no letting up anytime soon.'

 

Click on the picture to see the video on their Twit feed.

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I've explained a couple of times that I rarely watch TV and how usually I only turn the TV on to have someting to fall asleep to - it's true. The TV show 'Friends' was on when I lived on St. John - it actually started 30 years ago, back in '92 (hard to believe, right?). Anyway, I honestly can't say I ever watched a full episode until the other day when I was home being sickly-like and hanging on the couch all day. I had just one thought about it - WTF was the series about? These people all became multi-millionaires doing this? Jeez. Gotta admit, though - she was pretty cute. Perky little fuckers...

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Back in '57, if you got one of these for Christmas, yer ole' man 

musta been doing pretty good for himself - and/or you were an 

only child. Either that or he was in the mob and it fell off a truck.

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Historic district St. Augustine on Christmas Eve in 2019. It was 75 and sunny. One of the things I love the most about living here in North/Central Florida are these 'canopied streets', It's usually trees exactly like these - called 'Live Oaks' (for god knows what reason) that shape the canopies. Cool, huh? It's screams 'Deep South'.

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Thank God my Mother was Italian - we never had to 

deal with shit like this in our house.

Weenies on a tree. GTFOH.

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