Sunday, during a break in the Pats lurching over Buffalo, Christmas Eve dinner came up.

We're not Italian. I didn't even know about the Feast of the Seven Fishes till I was middle-aged. The closest we ever came to a Christmas Eve feast was sauteed lobster meat once, a sinful nod at the "no meat on Friday" tradition that extended to "fasting" on the eve of Church holy days.

smeatballs.jpgWhen all that went the way of Mass in Latin, Christmas Eve became the occasion for my mother's annual attempt at Swedish meatballs -- hamburg golfballs in cans of Franco-American beef gravy, congealing in a square electric frying pan my brother still lives with. A pot of boiled egg noodles waited.

We hated the tough meatballs in brown slurry, but she didn't seem to remember this from year to year. Even mentioning them now made my brother nervous.

"Grilled cheese sandwiches!" he growled. "I'm not here for the food, I come for the good company."

My daughter got nostalgic over that square electric frying pan on four sturday legs. We asked him to bring it.