we’re so black and crying because we’re sopping wet. She tells us take off all our clothes and she washes the coal off our hands and faces. She tells Dad the pig’s head can wait a while so that we can have a jam jar of hot tea. It’s raining outside and there’s a lake downstairs in our kitchen but up here in Italy the fire is going again and the room is so dry and warm that, after our tea, Malachy and I doze off in the bed and we don’t wake till Dad tells us the dinner is ready. Our clothes are still wet, so Malachy sits on the trunk at the table wrapped in Mam’s red American overcoat and I’m wrapped in an old coat that Mam’s father left behind when he went to Australia. There are delicious smells in the room, cabbage, potatoes, and the pig’s head, but when Dad lifts the head from the pot to a plate Malachy says, Oh, the poor pig. I don’t want to eat the poor pig. Mam says, If you were hungry you’d eat it. Now stop the nonsense and eat your dinner. Dad says,Wait a minute. He takes slices from the two cheeks, places them on our plates and smears them with mustard. He takes the plate that holds the pig’s head and puts it on the floor under the table. Now, he  says  to  Malachy, that’s  ham, and  Malachy  eats  it  because  he’s  not looking at what it came from and it isn’t pig’s head anymore.The cab- bage is soft and hot and there are plenty of potatoes with butter and salt. Mam peels our potatoes but Dad eats his skin and all. He says all the nourishment of a potato is in the skin and Mam says it’s a good thing he’s not eating eggs, he’d be chewing the shells and all. He says he would, and it’s a disgrace that the Irish throw out mil- lions of potato skins every day and that’s why thousands are dying of consumption and surely there’s nourishment in the shell of an egg since waste is the eighth deadly sin. If he had his way, and Mam says, Never mind your way. Eat your dinner. He eats half a potato with its skin on and puts the other half back in the pot. He eats a small slice of the pig’s cheek and a leaf of cabbage and leaves the rest on his plate for Malachy and me. He makes more tea and we have that with bread and jam so that no one can say we didn’t have a sweet on Christmas Day. It’s dark now and still raining outside and the coal is glowing in the grate where Mam and Dad sit and smoke their cigarettes.There’s noth- ing to do when your clothes are wet but get back into bed where it’s 101