Christmas season to my Dad started on Thanksgiving evening when the family would gather after dinner to watch the movie "Christmas Vacation" with Chevy Chase. He, Eugene and I all love those Vacation movies with Chevy Chase. I guess that's because there's a little Clark Griswold in all three of us. But the official kickoff of the Christmas Season was the Sunday morning after Thanksgiving. That's when Dad would blast Mitch Miller and the Gang's Christmas sing along with Mitch record. He would also pull out the rest of his Christmas Carol LP arsenal which included Sinatra, Nat King Cole and even The Partridge Family. Dad would always make us smile when he did his opera Pavarotti-like rendition of O Come, All Ye Faithful. He liked to get a little silly to make others smile! The Christmas songs would continue for the next 4-6 weeks on weekends until the Feast of the 3 Kings. One of Dad's most cherished hobbies was woodworking. He loved to make the family wooden Christmas decorations. It was the 10 foot wooden soldier, nativity scene, reindeer, life size Santa, etc etc just to name a few. Nothing would bring a smile to his face faster than when he would pull up to your house in the Christmas season in his car and he would see that you were proudly displaying his work. He loved to bring joy and happiness into the lives of others. Dad would also bring us to my Uncle John's Church for midnight mass in Newark NJ - St. Casimir's. But before going to mass we would go to my Aunt Jo and Uncle Louie's for dinner and to exchange gifts... Something that Eugene and I always looked forward to. The best gifts for all the kids in the family were always given by Uncle John. I never knew how he knew what all the cool kids toys were. After gifts we would go to church about 11:20 p.m. so we could make sure we had good seats for mass (which Mom always insisted on). Midnight mass would always last between 1 and a half and 2 hours. My Uncle John was the pastor of the church and would do the sermon in English than all over again in Polish. My brother and I would laugh at my father when my uncle was giving his sermon my dad would make a 'turning the crank' motion with his hands which was code for your Uncle is really wound up for a long sermon. For a lot of people their favorite part of Christmas is receiving gifts but not for our Dad. He was the worst gift receiver ever because he was so generous it was uncomfortable for him to receive gifts. He would always say "I don't need nothin' and the only thing I want is to see the family together". BTW, the family being together was always the best part of Christmas mainly because of my Dad and his heart of gold. If you look the term "Spirit of Christmas" up in the dictionary, you just might see the picture of Stanley Kulaga next to it wording that reads "see him".