Christmas Eve is a special day in our family. I remember as a child looking forward to the evening meal, when we would have the seven fishes dinner. It is an Italian tradition.

I can hear you now - Dr Ramirez - your name does not sound Italian. You're right, it does not. However, my mom's maiden name is Belott, and as we learned from looking at the ship manifesto on Ellis Island in New York, it was originally 'Biletto' and was changed to 'Belott' when my mom's grandfather came to the US from Avelino Italy.

Anyway, we continued to go to the meal after Kelly and I were married because we enjoyed it so much. When we had children, we started our own tradition of also having the 7 fishes meal.

When my dad was seriously ill, I invited my family to come to our house, and we had the Christmas Eve dinner at our house. That was in 1998. The next year, I invited my extended family to our house again, and we had 16 people there! Since then we have continued the tradition, only we moved it up to a 'lunchtime' dinner. My wife and I also invited some friends one year when my Mom went to Florida. It has continued to grow, and we had 22 people this year!

I pray all of you had a very Merry Christmas.