True, Lady C... but you haven't lived until you've had one of my traditional carved bologna turkeys with peanut butter and jelly dressing. And, that IS traditional Italian Xmas fare for this part-Sicilian poor boy.

As my grandpap explained it to me, "A tradition had to start somewhere. Before then, something else was the tradition. When you have as many kids as we do, tradition is often nothing more than repeating what you did when that was all you could afford."

I can sympathize with your distress over the squid tentacles draping over the rim of the serving bowl, Conserv. I still shudder when I remember those bowls of chicken in red sauce with the feet sticking upright from the depths of that traditional dish. Though my system reacts strongly and negatively to seafood, I was often at that table when fish was served. I really have a problem with staring at any dinner dish that stares back, even if I am not required to eat it.

We piasanos are not alone in such dubious culinary delights. Many of my friends and clients are of Mexican descent. I no longer accept their invitations to certain traditional ethnic feasts. I have done so before only to be greeted by the sight of the decapitated head of a cow or an entire pig, complete with head, feet and tail still attached, gracing the spot of honor in the center of the table. Yeeech!

Your Italian in-laws are reliving a tradition that goes back a long way to a time when their ancestors depended on the sea to feed them and their families. They had an abundance of seafood as well as an abundance of little else in its stead. It is as my grandpap indicated. They created their own "tradition" from what they had available and made it into a "festive" occasion as best they could.

We do not dishonor them if we establish our own "traditions." In fact, we do them the greatest honor when we create our own, for we are following in the single most important tradition they bequeathed to us... the continuation of their strength of character in the face of hardship and the ability to make what is available to us into something special. It was not the menu that they intended to be our gift of tradition. It was the gathering together of those we care deeply about and the sharing of our sense of family united as a single, cohesive group. That was the real gift of tradition they gave us. That is the tradition I got from my family and it is one I value most highly of all.

When you have umpteen hundred grandkids and limited resources, you wish to be fair to them all. In my family that's how it became traditional for all the grandkids above a certain age to get a bargain basement bag of handkerchiefs, though the girls got prettier ones. Every grandchild got exactly the same thing. As a matter of fact, I think I still have two or three unopened packages of the things salted away all these years later. Below that age, a grandchild received a bag of Xmas hard candy. Adult children and grandchildren also had a traditional Xmas gift. The males got a multi-pack of dime store underwear and the girls got new identical hairbrushes.

Why have I hung onto those unopened packages of cheap handkerchiefs? It's a traditional thing, but I think you do understand. The bodies of my grandparents and parents are long since departed from this plane, but those bitter-sweet memories are rekindled every time I look at those handkerchiefs still in the original package.

My own Sicilian forebears date back to equally poor Albanians who fled their native land to escape the ravages of the Ottoman Turks and their campaign of world-wide terror and conquest. Those refugees made their perilous way west to Italy where they took up service in the armies of the Italian feudal lords of that day and time. They eventually parlayed that service into grants of land they could farm or fishing boats that could feed them and their families. They had to start their own traditions back then. Those incorporated the new conditions with the old ones that helped them remember a time and place that was dear to them. As is the rightful process of time and circumstance, these traditions modified with the passage of time and generations who had never been to those old lands. Rather than losing anything, their descendents gained new traditional things and enriched our heritage. We would be most disrepectful of them were we to do any less than what they did.

Wanna pass me that bowl of pork 'n bean cobbler? I love traditional desserts. Have another bologna sandwich. It's Xmas.