My Guest Blog! My Father Cancelled Christmas

I'm a member of two great supportive websites for individuals and young adults fighting and surviving cancer - Stupid Cancer and I Had Cancer. I highly recommend both if you or someone you love is faced with the disease (and I pray you never need them!).  There are certainly many other great sites out there, but I took a personal liking to these two.

It's through YOUR encouragement, love and support my dear family and friends, to keep writing, that I submitted my blog for consideration to I Had Cancer as a guest blogger.  I was asked to consider an entry about Christmas and several weeks ago, submitted the following (events took place during my second chemo treatment).  I thank them very much for the opportunity to encourage others through their site. You can find the edited version on the I Had Cancer website here:  My Father Cancelled Christmas

Below is the full submission (you may recall the antipasta table goody list from my White Hostess Wonder Bread and Christmas Antipasto entry).  I just noticed I spelled antipasta two ways.  Either way I write it, it's always delicious!
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My father is a spectacular home cook and a master of the Italian Christmas feast.  Days before the main event he’s perfecting his red sauce and meatballs, frying eggplant and creating succulent, rich lasagna.  Dad works like an animal to make sure everyone has a spectacular meal and a great time. For our family, Christmas is about the birth of our Savior, time together and stuffing our faces until we can’t see straight.

He’s meticulous when he lays out his assortment of proper wine stemware across my mother’s antique deserter.  And to watch him assemble the glorious antipasta table – the meal before the meal – is like watching a true craftsman at work. 

The antipasta table doesn’t offer seating, rather, we prefer to huddle 20 people around a 6 foot table loaded with petite dishes offering selections of  imported prosciutto and cured meats; fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomato and basil; marinated mushrooms; roasted peppers and artichokes; fresh breads, crackers and cheeses; olives and tapenades.  Everything you need to give your pending food coma a solid foundation.

Standing around the antipasta table is where you’re greeted with love, hugs and kisses as family make their way into my childhood home.   Sweet nieces and nephews sit by the tree with a few adults, constructing their gifts.  Sports scores and hearty laughter echoes throughout the house as we all shout stories between rooms. 

Within a few hours the herd moves upstairs for the main event.  You loosen your pants, waddle to a seat and get ready for more.  Desert, coffee and cordials naturally follow dinner, as the matriarchs tidy up and prepare their voices for a bloated chorus of horribly terrific off-key caroling.  My cousin picks up the best Italian Rainbow cookies from Little Italy each year and I’ve carried on the tedious tradition of making the Struffoli, tiny fried balls of dough saturated in orange infused honey.  It’s not Christmas in an Italian home without Struffoli and a table of over the top pastries.

At the end of the night, as half of us drool in an armchair, nodding off for a nap, out comes the loose change.  It's poker time, Cousins vs. Uncles. 

Christmas with my family is simply spectacular.

I was sitting back Wednesday night.  Chemo dripping away.  TV remote in one hand, ham sandwich in another, enjoying the company of my husband and Dad when the bomb dropped.

"We're not having Christmas this year" Dad casually stated.

I’m normally a very rational thinking, considerate person, but if ever I wanted to throw a diva toddler tantrum it was now.  "Who has the audacity to cancel a holiday on an entire family?!  This is ludicrous.  Is it even up for discussion?"

"It's done.  Canceled" replied Dad.

“Are you freaking kidding me?!”  This is madness!   I’m a 36 year old married woman with a mortgage and two cats.  I think I’m entitled to an opinion here.

My dad is a two time colon cancer survivor and if anyone understands how sacred and special each day is, it’s him.  My parents and my husband are my caregivers.  As irate as I was, I had to put the brakes on my anger, take a step back and appreciate that they’re physically and emotionally exhausted.  I've been in and out of the hospital three times over the past month.  Once for Deep Vein Thrombosis, one stay for a pulmonary embolism and most recently this past weekend for a fall due to a lousy throat infection.   As much as we strive to find the humor and blessings in our situation, we’ve been through hell lately.   While I’ll miss our extended family, I have to recognize the sacrifices my caregivers make for me every day and allow us all to have some down time this Christmas.  A scaled down day certainly doesn’t mean we won’t eat well.  Knowing my parents, and I’m so grateful for them, they’ll find a way to make this Christmas memorable and special.