Our Brooklyn apartment building smelled delicious on Christmas, with the yummy aromas of multiple holiday feasts wafting out of our neighbors’ homes into the hallway.
Some families celebrate Christmas with a traditional roast, or a ham, or even Christmas goose. One of my favorite Christmas dinner memories is pocket sandwiches.

It was just my mom and me at home when I was growing up, and Mom was a practical woman who didn’t see much point in making an elaborate Christmas dinner for just the two of us. Instead, Christmas was mainly about going visiting.

We would start the day by opening presents at home, with eggnog and Johnny Mathis. When we were done, we’d go see Mom’s two older sisters. I don’t recall a specified time we were to get there, and we weren’t arriving in time for a meal. We’d just hug, talk and eat cookies. So. Many. Cookies.

When I was in high school, my mom bought a cute little house on a main road. Friends often honked as they drove by, whether we were on the front porch or not.

That’s when we became the Christmas popover house. Not popovers, like the baked good, but unannounced guest popovers.

My mom went through phases were she obsessed about a certain food, we’d have it sometimes weekly, until she burned out on it. Around the time we moved into that house, she was obsessed with making a creamy, rich potato soup that she only knew how to make in Army-sized vats. She made a pot of soup for us earlier Christmas week so we’d have something easy for dinner when we were done visiting, which also meant there was a ton left. One of her friends stopped to say merry Christmas. Well of course she offered a bowl of soup …

That began an understanding with Mom’s friends: If my car is in the driveway and our front door is open (we had a solid storm door that kept out most of the winter chill, and we kept the fireplace roaring all day so a little cool draft wasn’t the worst thing), you’re welcome to stop. There were no RSVPs, because it wasn’t a party. Just an offer that if you didn’t have a place to go, or if your family left you frazzled, our door was literally open.

We never knew who would come by or when. We lived up the street from my mom’s preferred neighborhood bar, which I believe only closed one day a year, so some folks who otherwise would have bellied up to the bar at Snip and Dale’s came to us instead.

Mom began to plan around being the Christmas island of misfit toys. One year, she was obsessed with pocket sandwiches. Pita bread was new and exotic in the Midwest in the 1980s. So she set out a sort of sandwich buffet on the kitchen table with meats, cheeses and veggies with pocket bread, explicitly because it didn’t need to be heated and could sit all day for whoever came by.

That sandwich buffet is what I often picture when I think of Christmas dinner. She wanted to ensure there was no such thing as no room in the inn. 

I love the idea of putting out a no-reservations spread on Christmas, but it seems most of our friends in New York are from someplace else. Lots of them travel hours to see their family. In Saginaw, folks we knew were generally born there and died there, so their parents and siblings probably all lived close enough that they could have the day with them and still pop by for a beer with us to decompress after.

Maybe I’ll try it anyway. In the era of texting, we don’t even need to leave a front door open.

Related blog posts:

• Why I’m grateful our new Christmas tablecloth looks tiedyed
• On Christmas without my mom’s gifts — OR: Who’s going to buy me a ceramic goose?
• I’m a blend of my mom and stepmom
• Embracing all the emotions of the holidays
• Pointers on hosting simple weekday suppers
• Resolve to build your social connections