Zachary Tesi: "It's difficult because I have two families. My grandmother celebrates Christmas, and my other family doesn't. I'm all about being with family, and eating. I don't care much about holidays."
Sheila Breeden: "Just to be with family, and definitely food."
Carlos Garcia: "I do whatever festivities get people together. I enjoy every tradition, because they mean getting together with family and enjoying family and life."
Terry Shuck: "We get together with our friends from our old neighborhood, the Clarks. We share this sacred time with them even though we may not see them the rest of the year. We light candles, read the Christmas story, and Bruce the Dad gets emotional because he's a softie. It's very sweet to have this tradition with this family."
Leonard Dalipi:"New Year's Eve is very big in Kosovo. For example, my family would go to my aunt's and uncle's house and other aunts and uncles families would come. We have food, music and dance until 2 or 3 in the morning. At midnight we are all happy and wish each other good wishes. It's a three days long celebration. The young adults spend time with their girl friends and go out visiting friends January 1st and 2nd and share stories about their New Year's eve. There's lots of traditional Albanian food: beef, fruits, all kinds of sweets. We watch special comedies that are made for New Year's and there are jokes, lots of jokes."
Dorothy Barnes (at left): "Growing up, we'd often open our gifts on Christmas eve, because that's a German tradition. It was the depression -- we didn't exchange gifts, but Santa came. We felt lucky to get anything."
Laney Park (at right): "We always stay home on Christmas morning and stay in pajamas as long as we can and take as long as we can to open presents. The night before Christmas we try to put Jesus in the manger scene and read the nativity story to our kids."
Musa Jadour (at left): "I try to be merry. That's about the best I can do. I try to treat every day as a holiday."
Dave Burbank (at right): "Driving back and forth between my family and my wife's family. Feeding each other and ourselves."
