The Christmas dinners of my childhood were totally traditional… somewhere. Like Canada or something. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy… standard stuff. The “tradition” was actually started by my great-grandmother. She had been born 6 weeks after her parents got off the boat from Germany and I’m thinking there may have been a bit of an anti-German rebellion going on, there. As a result, we still, to this day, have the traditional anti-German Christmas dinner and, frankly, I don’t know weisswurst from dumbwurst. I’m not complaining, mind. I always liked the good old American turkey thing we rocked each December.

No, the exceptional thing in the traditional Smith Christmas dinner menu wasn’t the food, good as it was. It was the quantity of food! There was just the five of us, way back when, plus usually the addition of at least a couple of my dad’s stray friends. So, for arguments sake, we’ll say there were seven people, and I’ll submit to you now, enough food to feed a moderately sized third world country. 15 lb turkeys? Pishaww! That’s for amateurs! No turkey under 20 lbs were even in the running! More often than not, they were of the 22-25 lb variety! 5-7 lbs of mashed potatoes and when I say “gravy boat”, we’re talking close to a real boat! A pie? Nonsense! A couple pumpkin pies, mincemeat and apple, plus the loaves and loaves of the traditional German Christmas Stolen mom always made. Cookies like you wouldn’t even believe…I’m having trouble breathing just thinking about it! All this for, at the most, seven people!

So how did this nuclear family of the 60′s happen to be eating enough food to keep Sri Lanka healthy? In a word, the depression. My father, who was born in 1921, apparently went through some lean times in the early 30′s and this caused a lifelong aversion to anything smaller than 10lb bags of potatoes or #10 cans. Luckily, most of use thought leftovers rocked – except, ironically, my dad!