Epiphany

Epiphany!

According to the liturgical calendar, the feast will be celebrated on 7 January this year. According to the Nuzzo Family, we celebrate it on the first Saturday of the New Year so that we can all get together. So today, 6 January 2007, we are celebrating the 12th Day of Christmas together: the descendants of Salvatore Nuzzo and Maria Zito.

In days gone-by our family always gathered on Christmas Eve, first at the house of my grandparents Salvatore and Maria, and then, from 1960 to 1989, at the house of my parents John and Concetta (Nuzzo) Boenzi. There was always a great turnout on Christmas Eve, and we always celebrated by preparing the traditional, meatless meal.

But after the death of the grandparents, the families gathered more locally on Christmas Eve. Paula Nuzzo Radosevich gathered the Nuzzo branch at her house; Rose (Cookie) Kasal Harris gathered the Kasal branch at hers; Mario and Diane Boenzi gathered the Boenzi branch at there home in Cerritos. And the Gray Family had moved to Reno, and celebrated in their own way… we all but lost touch with them, really.

Still, all the cousins missed the gathering. At Cookie's instigation, we resolved to meet once a year and celebrated anything together, and that carried us through the summer of 1990, after Papa Salvatore's death, until 2001. But there was something about the holiday season that we didn't want to miss, so in 2002, the gathering day has been Epiphany at the home of Paula (Nuzzo) and Ken Radosevich in Temecula…

This is how the Nuzzo extended family in California has come to make Epiphany central to our life as family. Paula did all she could to research the customs, and bakes the King Cake… Paula and Ken also irritate all their Anglo neighbors by keeping up all their Christmas decorations till now… but then, everyone in the family still has their homes decorated in Christmas theme till now, so Paula? Let your Anglo neighbors feel as uncomfortable as they want. It is Epiphany! It is still Christmas!

And so, for the Nuzzo Clan, Epiphany has become a great day for family: lots of fun, lots of chaos, lots of time together. The day goes quickly since there are so many people to visit with, stories to recap, and all the catching up that goes into it.

We are just back from the celebration now, and uploading our photos before going off to sleep… but then, the neighbors are having a wild party here, and we may not get to sleep any time soon.