December 25, 2025, Christmas Day, at home (in southeastern Florida)
Winter Memories On Long Island, New York
Christmas Eve dinner and opening presents around the tree slightly before midnight at our home with my father's side of the family; we spent Christmas Day with my mother's side of the family at my grandparents' home ... snowball fights at Bayview Elementary School ... sledding ... spearfishing for eels with a thick, ten-foot-long wooden pole on a frozen Willetts Creek, which was only about 50 feet from my house; we would chop a small hole in the ice with a hatchet, spear the eels that were hibernating, buried in the mud, and then have my dad's friend with the smokehouse smoke them for us: delicious ... "skitching" with my friends: grabbing onto the bumper of a slow-moving car that was passing by and sliding down the snowy road on our feet, trying not to fall and definitely trying to avoid the car's exhaust pipe in our faces ... and skating and playing hockey with Cousin Scott after hiking through the woods to a half-frozen Southards Pond, sometimes skating until 10 p.m. by the light of the moon, with our long, thick rope nearby in case someone fell in; this was often followed by Indian food take-out, beer in coffee mugs, classical music (WQXR-FM from New York City) on the radio, and discussions of Nietzschean philosophy at Scott's apartment. ... truly halcyon days.
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