Elaborate fantasies, home baked goods and more time are the gifts we give our loved ones.
Angela Falvey told me the “truth” about Santa Claus.
I was in second grade.
Angela was a little girl who lived in our university neighborhood with her big, blue-collar Italian family. The daughter of a factory worker, she had long dark hair that parted straight down the middle and I thought she was beautiful. Our homes backed up to one other, sharing a chain-link fence. We could talk to each other over that fence, like our mothers sometimes did, without ever leaving our own yards, and we could wave to each other from our respective kitchen windows while we were helping with the dinner dishes. We were friends because of that proximity and because we were the same age and in the same class at school, but I don’t know if I ever really, truly liked her.
She came from a family with lots of kids, early bedtimes, and a dog that barked late into the evening. She was rougher than I was and southern; and she had to call her parents “ma’am” and “sir,” a formality I did not understand, and even at such a young age, thought was oppressive somehow. There was never any question that, before our friendship was over, I would learn things I shouldn’t or wouldn’t want to know.
Our school was about a mile from our homes, a typical low-slung, brick-faced building with two playgrounds and a common cafeteria. We walked to school — across our quiet street, past an irrigation ditch and a retention
pond, through a field, across a busy street with a crosswalk guard, two blocks down a paved road and then a short-cut to the school’s back door — and then we walked home again in the afternoon. I know my mom, and other neighborhood mothers, made the journey with us for awhile. All through kindergarten or just half that year? I’m not sure. Maybe even into first grade, but I’m sure by the time I was in second grade, I had joined the ranks of the big kids who could walk alone.
One day during that December, as Angela Falvey and I were walking home from school, across the frozen field, our sisters lagging behind in a cloud of sixth-grade secrets, Angela told me with some authority the “truth” about Santa Claus. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation evolved or why she felt compelled to set me straight or which details she punctured. I just remember how I felt.
Devastated.
Devastated that everything I thought about Christmas might be untrue. Devastated that someone would even dare suggest that my parents had somehow lied to me. Devastated that someone who said she was my friend would assault me like that, inexplicable and unprovoked. I wanted to slap her.
Instead I ran home to my mother (who, incidentally, had her own opinions about the Falveys).
That night, as I lay in my red-gingham bedroom at the top of the stairs, crying, my Dad came into my darkened room to help me through the trauma. He told me a story about how, when my sister was a toddler, before my brothers and I were even born, he would make toys in the detached garage at their home in Trinidad, Colorado, explaining to her that she couldn’t come in because she would scare away the elf who was helping him.
Was that just another lie? Maybe, he told me, but he liked to think it was instead a different kind of present that we give to the people we love, a little bit of magic that makes ordinary things special. Angela Falvey might have been technically right, he said, but she missed the most important thing about that story: Love elevates Santa Claus from an elaborate fiction to a grand gift.
Not everyone believes, he said, but we do.
My dad is 92-years old now, and on this day he is curled up in a fetal position on a hospital bed, fighting off the effects of a near-fatal liver infection. Sometimes, this past week, he has railed against the nurses and aides, swearing and gritting his teeth when they ask him to take a pill or sit still for a blood draw or walk four steps to the bathroom. Sometimes he jokes or flirts or regales the burly, bald CNA with stories about winter in Korea. Sometimes, he just shrugs and answers the doctors’ requests with “Whatever.”
We brought him a little Christmas tree to put on the window ledge in his hospital room and bought some red flowers in candy cane-striped vases to remind him there are things to keep fighting for, things to still believe in.
I believe in the stories he told that distraught 7-year-old girl all those years ago.
I believe that on Christmas morning there will be presents for my dad under the tree. I believe Santa will have signed the tags on some of those packages.
I believe that this week the magic is real.
The Pie
Old Italian Christmas Ricotta Pie
I was recently invited to a Christmas party at the home of a cherished friend and former colleague. She made a delicious lasagna that she served on holiday China in a dining room she said she doesn’t use often. Another friend made cranberry mimosas; a third brought garlic bread, crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, still warm from the oven. I volunteered to make a festive dessert.
I really love cannolis, that creamy ricotta filling and the little bursts of chocolate and the crispy crunch of the shell. So when I stumbled across the recipe for this pie, I was intrigued. Looking at the recipe, I thought it would be a cannoli in a pie crust. It isn’t quite that. The crust, of course, isn’t as crunchy as a cannoli shell, but it is sweet and flaky. The filling is firmer, appropriate for something that needs to keep its shape when it is cut, but it has the same slightly cheesy sweetness and the little pops of chocolate. I decided to cut the rather overwhelmingly-large original recipe in half and make mini pies for the party. They turned out to almost be finger food, fun and festive and a sweet good-bye kiss to a delicious Italian meal.
One thing to note: This pie is really rich — so be careful! If you make a full pie, divide it into 12 slices instead of the traditional 8. The four or five bites of the mini pies are just about the perfect size.
The recipe
Mini Old Italian
Ricotta Christmas Pies
Filling
6 large eggs
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ pounds ricotta cheese
¼ cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips, or more to taste
Sweet crust
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 ½ tablespoons baking powder
½ cup white sugar
¼ cup shortening, chilled
½ tablespoon shortening, chilled
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
About ½ tablespoon milk
Beat the 6 eggs, 1 cup sugar and vanilla extract together in a large bowl. Stir in the ricotta cheese and the chocolate chips. Set aside.
For crust, combine the flour, baking powder and sugar together. Cut in chilled shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Mix in 2 beaten eggs and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. Divide dough into 2 balls, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease cups in a muffin pan.
Roll out two balls of dough and cut dough into small circles that will cover the bottom and sides of the muffin cups. Do not make the crust too thick, as it will expand during cooking. Do not flute the edges of the dough. Use the leftover dough to cut each into strips for the lattice top of the crust. (Alternately, you can use cookie cutters and place the cutouts on the top of the pies.)
Pour the ricotta filling into the pie crusts. Top each pie with the strips of crust in a lattice pattern or with the cookie cut-outs. Brush top of pie with milk for shine, if desired. Cover muffin tin loosely with foil.
Bake in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes; remove foil. Rotate pies on the rack so they will bake evenly. Continue to bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of each pie comes out clean, another 10-15 minutes.
Cool completely on wire racks. Refrigerate until serving.
Traditional Old Italian Ricotta Christmas Pie
Makes 2 deep-dish pies
Pie filling
12 large eggs
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 pounds ricotta cheese
¼ cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips, or to taste
Sweet crust
4 cups all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons baking powder
1 cup white sugar
½ cup shortening, chilled
1 tablespoon shortening, chilled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk
Beat the 12 eggs, 2 cups sugar and vanilla extract together in a large bowl. Stir in the ricotta cheese and the chocolate chips. Set aside.
Combine the flour, baking powder and one cup sugar together. Cut in ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Mix in 4 beaten eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Divide dough into 4 balls, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease two deep-dish pie plates.
Roll out two balls to fit into the pie pans. Do not make the crust too thick, as it will expand during cooking. Do not flute the edges of the dough. Roll out the other two balls of dough and cut each into 8 narrow strips for the top of the crust. (Alternately, you can use cookie cutters and place the cutouts on the top of the pies.)
Pour the ricotta filling into the pie crusts. Top each pie with the strips of crust in a lattice pattern or with the cookie cut-outs. Brush top of pie with milk for shine, if desired. Place foil around the edge of the crust.
Bake in preheated oven for 20-30 minutes; remove foil. Rotate pies on the rack so they will bake evenly. Continue to bake until a knife inserted in the center of each pie comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes more.
Cool completely on wire racks. Refrigerate until serving.
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