Gathering’s non-traditional feast brings fond memories
Christmas is the time to get together with family and friends and, more importantly, feast with the ones you love.
However, my family’s festive gathering was not what one would expect.
Ever since I was young my family has gathered at my great grandmother’s house, a tiny ranch-style house with a net patio on Howton Street in Houston. You could tell which is ours by the men smoking Newports and sitting on white painted benches outside in the chilling cold.
Big Mama died in 2024, but the tradition continues as we gather at what will always be her house.
The inside of Big Mama’s house is small and there was an old brown couch against the wall that was supposed to serve the 30-odd people, not including family members, who stopped by. The house is always full, but there is always room on the couch as visitors would leave as soon as they got a plate and a couple of cigarettes.
Big Mama’s house was only designed to fit up to 12 people, so the house is always exceptionally stuffy due to everyone’s body heat, with the smells of cigarette smoke and my uncle’s “swamp water gumbo” filling the air.
For those who don’t know, gumbo is a stew that originated in New Orleans, Louisiana that consists of chicken, sausage, rice, shellfish and spices.
However, because my family has health problems — due to age and bad choices — our gumbo is watered down chicken stock with pieces of chicken and sausage swimming in what looks like rice and swamp water. Our gumbo has no seasoning and no shellfish.
My uncle is no cook, but as he lived with my grandmother, and still lives in the house, he was “voluntold” that he is making the gumbo. He makes it the week before and freezes it — “That way it can be fresh when it’s time to eat” — so we always have to work our way around random ice chunks, like the Titanic crossing the Atlantic.
That gumbo is the nastiest thing I have ever had to eat in my life. I never understood how my family members could willingly eat such an abomination of a beloved Louisiana dish.
For the Christmas feast, if you can even call it that, my mother is also “voluntold” to make buttermilk pies. Buttermilk pie is supposed to be creamy and flaky, but unfortunately, my mother’s pie is dry as dust. Every year it is the same tasteless, thirst-provoking pie.
And don’t even think about drinking water. The only liquid available is an old jug of Sunny-D that has been in the fridge since 2015. My family don’t bother to buy a pack of water but they always managed to restock the cigarettes.
To top it all off we’re always trapped in that cramped house until 1 in the morning, because whoever was parked behind us is never anywhere to be found.
It is not the usual Christmas party tradition, but it is our family tradition. Despite the headache they annually cause me, I can’t wait to see my family during the holidays.
But I’ll probably eat before I go.