Like most people, I’ve several endearing childhood Christmas memories. Our family’s celebrations were traditional. Open the gifts, attend Mass, then eat. We celebrated with the extended Kaska family at Abbott’s Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church hall. We’d have a big meal, exchange gifts, and then some of my cousins would entertain us with singing. Then my cousins and I would play the Czech card came, Taroky.

But the Nors side of the family celebrated on the farm. The dinner menu was much like Thanksgiving except for two additions: Divinity—a candy made from egg whites and pecans—and an extra entrée: fried catfish. The men in the family would fire-up their camp stoves and do the frying. I remember dad saying that the only way to fry catfish was to get the oil as hot as possible, which could only be done on a camp stove because of the blue flame it produced. Of course, this had to be done outdoors. But I suspect that preparing this dish outside had just as much to do with passing around the secretive bottle of Jack Daniels as the temperature on the camp stove.

After the evening meal, we all crammed into my grandparents’ small living room, where a real Christmas tree took up half the space. My grandmother had several hardcover songbooks that she passed out so we could sing Christmas carols. I remember one boy-cousin having a baritone voice, and he loved belting out “We Three Kings” and “Good King Wenceslas.” My grandfather’s favorite, “Silent Night,” always brought a tear to his eye. I don’t remember him saying much, but the love he felt for his large family was evident, especially at Christmas. We’d also watch the Wizard of Oz on a black and white TV. Those monkeys scared the hell out of me.

After I left home, I always returned for Christmas, except for one year when I got a wild hair and decided to do something audacious. The idea had been brewing since I was a child, but I never gave it too much thought until I had the freedom of graduating from college. Since I worked so hard to get a degree, I told myself that I could now do anything I wanted. I suddenly realized I’d act on that crazy idea. Six months later, after saving up some money, I put my stuff in storage, packed two suitcases, and my dog and I moved to New York City. I had one friend who lived there, and I crashed at his place until I found a job and an apartment. By Christmas, I’d made a few friends, and we celebrated like most New Yorkers do: taking in the scene at Rockefeller Center, shopping at Macy’s, strolling through Central Park. The big city Christmas was breathtaking and bitter cold. I missed my family and imagined them being with me, but my sisters also were doing their own thing, and so were my parents. The following Christmas, I was back in Texas.

A couple of weeks ago, another wish came true. My sisters and I used to take sister-weekend trips. Now that we’re all retired, we take sister vacations. This year, the four of us and a niece, and a friend treated ourselves to a few days in the Big Apple. We blew into New York City on December 6 and hit the ground running. By December 9, we paid our respects at the 911 Memorial and Museum (chilling); saw the Rockettes Christmas Show (thrilling); and attended the Broadway play, “Come From Away” (inspiring). And then there was a rickshaw ride through Central Park where my sister Karla resurrected that line from Home Alone: “Keep the change, you filthy animal.” We had hot chocolate while perusing the Christmas markets, drank champagne in Central Park, and took dinner at the 109-year-old Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station. We were there when a man burned down the Fox Studio Christmas tree and during the John Lennon candlelight service on the anniversary of his death. We visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral and went to the original Macy’s on 34th Street. I even saw the apartment I lived in forty years ago, where I paid $600 a month for rent. Today’s rent is ten times that amount. We amazed and entertained bartenders, those rickshaw drivers, and some Salvation Army volunteers. We applauded our waiters and made friends from all over.

Our visit to The Big Apple was a very special anointing, and it created a brand-new memory in my cerebral Christmas stocking.