This week, my new place of work was asking me to fill in for other reporters and anchors who were asking for time off at Christmas. Naturally, since I’m difficult to work with, I went to Ohio.

​I flew out on Christmas Eve. It was cold but the weather was okay leaving North Texas.

As we approached Cincinnati, though, the pilot came on and said we might have a bumpy landing because of the clouds and snow moving in. Naturally, a woman a few rows up thought, “Now’s the right time to do my makeup!”

The guy sitting next to me noticed I was trying to snap a shot of a woman fumbling with lipstick and using her iPhone as a mirror.

“She’s got to beautify herself,” he explained to me, laughing.

That was probably the first time anyone had said “beautify herself” in the history of Ohio.

We would ultimately land smoothly and about half an hour early, so I’m sorry to say we failed to recreate a scene from Airplane!

​Once we landed in Cincinnati, I made my way out to meet the family. My older brother had to stay at the house, though. The Scaias have an elaborate Christmas Eve tradition that involves a lengthy meal and, I swear I’m not making this up, the Christmas episode of Hogan Family.

My brother had started working on Christmas Eve dinner, which includes one dish for each apostle.

Each year, the Scaia family argues about what the 12 courses will be. Then we forget some of the courses the following year, so “cocktails” always wind up on the list. In our defense, my brother makes a mean Brandy Alexander.

Several relatives were joining us for Christmas Eve, so my brother printed out elaborate rosters of what we’d be eating. There’s a small chance I’m not the only Scaia who has too much free time.

Here’s the trick, in case anyone plans to attend a weirdly old-fashioned, New England-style Christmas Eve dinner: just pick at the fish-based dishes a little bit so it looks like you’ve eaten. That’ll save room for the fettuccine.

This is a meal that continues for quite some time. A cousin kept track this year. We went about three hours.

The same cousin was asking to be included in “Cocktail Hour” even though she’s not 21. The adults objected, but I, as the voice of reason, explained it’d be harmless. “It’s not like she’ll drink and drive,” I spelled out. “She doesn’t even have her drivers license, yet!”

A few years ago, I decided Texas would contribute to this meal. I brought home some vegetarian tamales [You’re not supposed to eat meat on Christmas Eve. Except for the dishes that have meat in them].

​This year, now that the Buc-ee’s opened in Ft. Worth, I decided to switch it up and add Beaver Nuggets to cocktail course. My mom would take charge there, serving the Beaver Nuggets in what I suspect was the classiest presentation in Beaver Nugget History.

On Christmas Day, everyone stumbled out of bed around noon.

This year, for Christmas dinner, the Scaias made a switch from roast beast to goose. This led to quite a bit of discussion about whether the goose was too “sinewy.” I do not know what “sinewy” means. I can’t imagine it matters.

My mom was disappointed, and I’m not making any of this discussion up [I also cleared it with the family to make sure it was okay to reprint this], that this goose had come from South Dakota. My family is from New York and New England, so she started going on about how only people on the East Coast know how to carve a goose.

I do not recall exactly how I weighed in about how I considered that explanation elitist, but the Scaias revisit the first course of Christmas Eve dinner on Christmas Day, so you can understand my mom answering, “I apologize for what you would consider a racist remark.”

My brother suggested we try the goose again next year, but to address the issue of its sinewy-ness, we let the goose sit a while in its juices and “self-baste” in its goose fat to become more tender.

“But it’s Christmas,” I do recall how I weighed in this time. “Self-basting is wrong.”

The Scaia family nativity scene had a tough year, also. I noticed the actual nativity scene was missing its barn. We had some work done on the house this year, and my family said the barn was behind some stuff in the garage.

It’s probably better the Scaias weren’t in charge of mangers when Jesus was born. Joseph would have walked up, explained there was no room at the inn, and Manger Scaia would have rolled his eyes at the thought of having to move a bicycle out of the way for the Son of God to be born.

I wasn’t in charge of decorating, but it does appear we at least had the sense to have a troll overlook the situation.

Looking back at Christmas dinner, I may, now that I’m looking at career options, open a bar with a sign reading, “Welcome to Goose Fat’s!”