At one time, my family’s traditional Christmas Eve celebration featured a big dinner. As we all grew older and my siblings got married, we would all enjoy a dinner of steak and shrimp before sitting down to exchange presents.

However, those marriages produced children who didn’t want to sit still and be patient as their parents, aunts and uncles hunkered down with a good meal and pleasant conversation. Something had to change.

I don’t remember all of the specifics of how our current Christmas Eve tradition came to pass, but that doesn’t really matter. All I know is that we look forward to it every year with increasing anticipation.

Instead of having a typical dinner, we all meet at my sister’s house for the greatest meal in the history of the world. Everyone brings an appetizer and a dessert to share. We set them all out on tables and just eat and drink and talk until all the presents are unwrapped, and we have to head back to our houses.

Someone always brings steamed shrimp so we have some remnant of dinners past, but the rest of the fare has a decidedly different flavor. Instead of steak, we will have pigs in a blanket, crab meltaways, and potato skins. Many years have featured bagel bites and even chicken nuggets.

Maria makes sure people have something healthy to eat by contributing a veggie platter. I believe that this show of common sense goes against everything the meal stands for, but she just won’t listen. Somehow, most of the veggies are gone at the end of the night each year.

In fact, most of everything seems to disappear. As those children who helped cause the end of the steak dinner tradition have grown up, we realized that just appetizers and dessert will not do. We needed more food.

This year, everyone was asked to bring a kind of main dish to share as well. I didn’t know what we were going to do. We had to think of something that wouldn’t take much time since we were busy most of the week. The dish also had to withstand the drive down to Baltimore and sitting in the car during Mass.

Finally, I stepped up to the plate. Yes, I actually made food for our family’s holiday gathering. The closest I had ever come to this was buying frozen mozzarella sticks a few years back to supplement our usual offering.

My plan almost backfired when one of my brothers informed us online he was considering enchiladas for his main dish. That’s what I wanted to bring. Luckily, he knew I probably had nothing else up my sleeve and he made another choice. He was right – I had no clue what else to make.

Naturally, this change in menu meant too much food as we even had leftover steamed shrimp. That never happens in my family. I’m sure one day we’ll find the right amount.

All I know is that almost a week after I put my enchiladas on the table for all to enjoy, I have heard no reports of food poisoning. It’s a Christmas miracle.