Christmas Eve Eve Eve.

The car is unpacked. Many presents are wrapped. (Many more are not, unfortun- ately.) Tomorrow we will head to a place where we can cut down a real live fresh tree. (I'm hoping this one is so fresh, sassy, and fragrant that Santa Claus will overlook the fake ones back in Illinois.)

But today? Today was about food. Today we sat down and worked out the menus for the next four days. I picked the food, wrote out the grocery list, and then my husband went out, bought it, and schlepped it home.

Honey, have I told you that I love you? Honey?

(Oh well--I guess all that grocery shopping is tiring.)

So. There is a stunning new steel refrigerator in the kitchen. One of those mega-kewl new ones with the armoire-type doors and the freezer on the bottom. And right now it's stuffed to overflowing with the food for the next few days.

We're very eclectic when it comes to Christmas feasting. We are equal-opportunity gluttons. We appropriate from every culture that makes us feel drooly.

For example, although we are very much not Italian, my husband is planning to make lasagna for dinner on Christmas eve. Right down to the home-made pasta. That's because like Polish people, which again, we are not, we like to eat a vegetarian meal on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas we become English by having a standing rib roast and roast potatoes for Christmas dinner. Then it's back to Italy for the green beans cooked and then tossed with butter and grated parmesan. Dessert is from America: peppermint stick ice cream with hot fudge sauce and real whipped cream. After that, it's the United Nations of Ecumenical Yuletide Naughty Calories: Irish truffles, German dark chocolates with brandy centers, Scottish shortbread, stollen, and an English fruitcake.

Mon dieu! if only I had time to make a buche de Noel.

--P.