Christmas Eve At Cusa's

There was a period of my life where I recall a consistent series of very special Christmas Eves. It started in the mid eighties and continued all the way to about 2001. These nights are like a series of living snapshots, frozen in time, etched forever in my heart and mind.

Between the ages of about twenty and fifty-three, a group of us celebrated Christmas Eve At Cusa's. Cusa is my oldest and dearest friend. We met in high school, and have had a platonic bromance ever since. We get each other. Even when we don't. We've had our ups and downs, our periods of distance, our spells of not even talking. But we find our way back to each other. Because he is simply too important not to be in my life.

On Christmas Eve, a gaggle of us would gather at Cusa's house and celebrate the night before Christmas with not-so-reckless abandon. We would be up until three or four in the morning. We would exchange gifts, celebrate our relationships, drink and eat until we were full, and share our love for each other. The night was all at once too quick and seemed to last forever. 

I would usually get there early, living a scant fifteen minutes from my friend, and help with the prep. Cusa's mom, affectionately known as "The Fairy Food Mother", would make enough grub to feed a small army. Cusa's pad was the bottom floor of a two-family house in Boston. Upstairs would be a gathering of Cusa's family. Downstairs, his friends. The two crowds would eventually mix. Our crowd would roll in anywhere between 8PM and 2AM. It was a festival of love, every bit, if not more, as joyous and special as Christmas Eve as a kid. 

Come to think of it, it was way more enjoyable than my Christmas Eve's as a kid. As a youth, we spent Christmas Eve at My aunty Philly's house in East Boston. As great as it was to see all my cousins, aunts, and uncles, there were serious drawbacks. First of all was a severe lack of space. The apartment was filled far beyond capacity, and smelled like fish (the traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner). It was butts to nuts all night, and, until I was old enough to leave the place on my own with my other cousins and go for walks around the neighborhood, (at about fourteen), the place was positively claustrophobic. 

Space was at such a premium that the only bedroom in the house (with the only room with a bed you could lye on when you got tired, which happened at about 10:06 when you were eleven and younger) was used for all the coats. So if your were tired, there was literally no place to stretch out, with coats piled high and deep. There was no room at all to play, or move for that matter, which is crucial to those in the single digit age bracket. I can say, and I speak for most of my cousins of approximately the same age, that Christmas Eve was, at best, a mixed blessing.

Once Cusa invited me and my twin over his place and we could actually leave my aunt's on own volition, however, Christmas Eve became a very special and wonderful event. One of those rare nights you look forward to all year.

Between the mid-eighties and early 2000's, it was my favorite night of the year. Most of my close friends and eventually my siblings and nephews were there, and the atmosphere was light, loving, and joyous. Exchanging gifts under Cusa's tree at about midnight was the highlight of the evening. Watching those you love open gifts you picked out, just for them, was magic. I run with a very creative, imaginative, artsy tribe. One year, our friend Ron surprised us all with full color, poster size drawings (from his own talented hand) as all of us dressed as the superheroes we created - based on own personalities - that Halloween. Another year, Cusa gave all the guys fully functioning Blow Guns, complete with graphite projectiles. 

At about that same time, our Christmas Mall Mayhem Day was at it's peak. Ten or more of us would spend the first Friday of December at a mall of our choosing, spending the whole day there, sipping Sambucca out of a  water bottle ("I Thirst!" Was the cry if you wanted a blast) and buying gifts (mostly, for ourselves). I built my vast library of Christmas CD's at that time as well. And Christmas Classics like "A Year Without A Santa Claus" (Heat Miser, Snow Miser), "It's A Wonderful Life", and "A Christmas Story" played on a loop in the background on Christmas Eve At Cusa's.

There was something Magic about that time of year. There is still something Magic about that time of year. There always will be. Give me loved ones. Give me a space to Celebrate ourselves; give me a space to celebrate our love for each other; give me you open heart, your open mind, your truest self. And I'm one happy camper. 

©2017 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Fall In Love

       Autumn is the most romantic season. Many will sight spring as the ultimate time of year for love in the air, but not me. Especially since I don’t like the spring. Spring for me is Limbo. It’s too warm to snow anymore (and I’m a snow junkie), but it’s not warm enough to go to the beach. It rains a lot, and mud is omnipresent. And look, I’m not complaining. Nor am I trying to put the kibosh on anybody’s love affair with spring. If you dig that season, more power to you and your daffodils. I’m just not into that time of year. But I digress.
       The romance of Fall in New England starts with the explosion of color that makes my heart sing. Scream, actually. The entire landscape comes alive with a most fiery palette. Autumn means weekend road trips to the mountains with your lover to immerse yourselves in the foliage. It's the first time of year you light a fire, and fire is a symbol of passion, of ignition. At some point, you make love in front of the flames, stoking your own burning heart for the person you’re with. That works for me.
       Fall means All Things Pumpkin. And pumpkins are just the coolest veggies going (even though they're technically a fruit). They’re big, bright, unique looking, and each one seems to have its own personality. I can’t say that about peppers. Or oranges for that matter. What other fruit or vegetable so defines a season? Pumpkins are to autumn what Santa Claus is to Christmas: a mythical symbol that embodies everything that’s magic about a particular time of year. Pumpkin hunting, pumpkin carving, pumpkin tossing, pumpkin coffee, pumpkin pie, pumpkin everything. I can’t get enough of them.
       By October, the holidays are right around the corner, starting with Halloween. And I love any ritual where you get to put on a costume and act weirder than normal. Girls in tight leggings and high boots come out of the preverbial woodwork, and man, is that sexy. The air is cool and crisp, yet, there is a particular loving warmth in it, a palpable comforting spirit.
       Summer is all about heat and sunshine, about spending as much time outside as you possibly can. Thus, summer is all about putting yourself out there, almost to the edge of being outside yourself. And now, fall is the start of a sweet embrace. Of yourself. Of who you are, and of of what you love. Of the people you love. It’s a time of year that encourages us to go within, and to spend as much time inside ourselves as we do in the great outdoors. Fall to me is like a big giant metaphysical hug from the universe that invites us to wrap ourselves around our own spirit, our own lives, and around the people in our life who really matter to us. That’s part of why I love the fall so much.
       That and all the pumpkins.


©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.  

Santa Claus Meets The Piatelli Twins

       This post is what’s known as a “Teaser”....
       And, adhering to my mantra that inspiration and spontaneity are absolutely vital to the nexus of creation, I, in the moment, add this, completely non-sequitur, yet invaluable tidbit:

Teasing your lover in the bedroom is so delicious, so explosively sexy, that, if you have any aversion to, or reservations about, being teased so much that you forget your own name, then please.....for sex sake.....try and get over it.
    
Thank You! That has been a word from our sponsor! Now, back to the program!
    
       This is the first picture of my twin brother Mike and I with Santa Claus. We were almost two years old. More pictures and stories to come.....

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Christmas In July

One of my favorite gifts to give at Christmas would have to be books. If you know what somebody is into, you can find a book about it. So its a very personal gift because it says to the reciever "I know you dig this, because I know you, because I love you." At least I hope that sentiment is communicated when I give someone a book.

To personalize it ever further, I always write something in the book. A unique message to the person I bought it for. I love doing that, and I've heard from people that its very much appreciated, and it makes the gift more special. That warms my heart.

I want to share some of those gifts and writings, but I've blocked out the names of the recipients in case they want to remain anonymous. Except for my mom. I know she's okay with it.

It's A Wonderful Life

       This is admittedly a bizarre time to post. But a combination of circumstance and inspiration has found me with some time to kill before I head to a friend’s house for Christmas Eve.
        While watching It’s A Wonderful Life, it occurred to me: How many of us are like George Bailey. Specifically, how many of us don’t ask for help when we desperately need it?
        During My Dark Ages, that was me. Although I was doing certain things to help myself, my attitude was that I was doing it all alone. That attitude wasn’t based on reality, but on my belief that I just wasn’t worth asking for all the help I really needed. I was unable to fully admit how positively awful I felt inside, because I was afraid that if anyone knew the truth, the Whole Truth, they would, in the words of Henry Potter “run me out of town on a rail”.
        That fear of complete alienation because of what was happening to me, because of how I felt, was real. As real as it was for the character George Bailey.
        But I’m not there anymore. Like George Bailey, I had an epiphany, an awakening. Through the actions of another, I was lead down a road, that I chose to take, that changed my life. So on this, my favorite night of the year, I say thank you. To the universe. To my higher power. To her.
        Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.
        And Happy Holidays once again...

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a wonderful life full of Wrongs) Reserved.