The Year of No Tortellini

Many of you know that, from the beginning of time, our family has had the tradition of gathering in my parents' kitchen one week before Christmas to make homemade tortellini.


We make a lot -- 500-700 (one year we made 792!) -- and each one is filled and folded by hand.

It's a labor of love because all us who are here (the five of us and my parents) make the tortellini for all family members that live out of town who, basically, arrive Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to eat. We like to give them a hard time about it; from the moment we sit down to eat we talk about all the work, work, work we did to make those 700 tortellini, and how we had to give up an entire Saturday for the task, and how even the guys just home from college sacrificed for the greater good of the family. We shamelessly pile on the guilt.


Except, I don't think they feel guilty. They're too busy eating.


Anyway. This year, for the first time since the beginning of time, we are breaking with tradition. There will be no homemade tortellini. Not one. We will not gather in Nonna's kitchen. We will not listen to opera. Additionally, we're not even celebrating Christmas with anyone and we are not  exchanging gifts.


No tortellini! No opera! No ribbons and bags and bows!


Instead ...


all 18 of us are meeting in Tampa, FL two days after Christmas to sail away on a western Caribbean cruise.


I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I think we'll survive a Christmas with no homemade tortellini ;-)

P.S. In case you're interested ... links to our tortellini tradition through the years:

792

Un Tradizione Italiano

What We Made Yesterday

Opera in the Kitchen

We start tortellini training early!