A Bronx Irish Christmas Long Ago [Terence Winch]

 A Bronx Irish Christmas Long Ago   [Terence Winch]

Paddy Winch, Bridie Winch, Kenny Reich, Jesse [Jimmy] Winch, 
Terence Winch, P.J. Conway, kitchen of 1912 Daly Ave, Bronx, ca. 1961

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C E L E B R A T I O N

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In our world, nothing compared

with Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

God’s power surging through the congregation,

from altarboys in our stiff collars and big red bows,

to the solid men of the parish in their finest array:

blue suits, gold wrist watches, crisp white shirts.

The women perfumed and girdled, lipsticked

and bejeweled. Enough incense

in the air to do the Wise Men proud.

The procession wound through the church,

organ honking, voices lifted in the special

Christmas sense of the slate wiped clean

and the universe beginning anew.

The tree in the house lit with fat colored bulbs

that looked good enough to eat. The old suitcase

full of fragile decorations, buried treasure found

every year on Christmas Eve and set free again.

The baby Jesus alive and well! Herod thwarted!

This called for presents. Toys, games, maybe

a watch or a knife. Along with Jesus came the whole

cast of Yuletide characters—Santa, Rudolph,

the Chipmunks, Bing Crosby, Jack Frost, Scrooge.

I’m surprised the Easter Bunny didn’t crash

the event. My father put out apple pie

and a glass of milk for Sanny, the remaining traces

of which on Christmas morning were proof enough

for me and my brother Jimmy of the entire

supernatural infrastructure of Bronx Irish culture.

But it was the party after Midnight Mass

that I remember most. Relatives and neighbors

would pour into our apartment for an all-nighter.

My mother would get the percolator going,

and start making breakfast for half the parish.

Bacon, eggs, blood pudding, plates of fresh rolls

with poppy seeds bought that day

in the Treat Bakery on Tremont Avenue.

Eating breakfast at two in the morning!

This was a miracle for a ten-year-old boy.

Bottles of Seagram’s and Canadian Club

stood at attention on the kitchen table,

silver ice bucket ringed with penguins

awaiting duty beside them. Ladies smoking

and gossiping. Glasses clinking. Laughter

throughout the house. The smell of pine,

the delicious aroma of sizzling bacon,

all welcoming Jesus back for another year.

Then the music and singing would start up,

my father on the banjo, P. J. Conway on the box.

The Stack of Barley, The Lakes of Sligo,

medleys of marches, waltzes, and polkas.

Theresa McNally, from my mother’s own town

in Galway, would sing “Galway Bay.” Steps would

be danced, jokes told, more drinks mixed and gulped.

I would go to bed so filled with the spirit

it seemed impossible to believe that life could

ever return to normal. Lying there exhausted,

but anxious to sneak down the hall at the earliest

opportunity and tear open the tantalizing packages,

I believed in everything: Jesus our Lord, Santa

our magic benefactor, my parents the immortal source

of the ongoing celebration that could never end.

[from Boy Drinkers, Hanging Loose Press, 2007]

Listen to  "Celebration" read by Pat Broaders of the Chicago-based band Bohola, from their Christmas CD.

P.J. Conway, my father Paddy Winch, and Brian Keenan in 1958. 

P.J. and my father performed locally in NY as "The Two Pats."  If they had a drummer for any particular gig, it would either be me, my brother Jesse, or P.J.'s nephew Brian, who immigrated from England in the '50s.  Brian went on to become the drummer for The Chambers Brothers, who were popular in the '60s and later.  He died pretty young, and lived pretty hard, as I recall. I am the steward of P.J.'s Walters D/C# accordion and my father's Vega tenor banjo seen in the photo. I used to have one of those green plaid tuxedo jackets, too, but it has vanished.

This post first appeared on The Best American Poetry blog, 23 Dec. 2010.

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Comments on the original 2010 post (and several later postings) of "A Bronx Irish Christmas Long Ago" from The Best American Poetry blog: 

Lovely poem! And Beannachtaí na Nollag to you and your family!
    Posted by: Laura Orem | December 23, 2010 at 12:31 PM

Terry: This poem always makes me weep-and did again. I must be Irish. A very Merry Christmas to you and your family.
    Posted by: Dave Beaudouin | December 23, 2010 at 12:52 PM

Gave me goosebumps Terence. Brought me back to my own youth where, though the labels were different, the feeling was much the same. THANK YOU for putting it in words, Robert Z.
    Posted by: Robert Zuckerman | December 23, 2010 at 12:56 PM

A great poem that really captures that wonderful time. I have to say, in my recollection, it was my father who cooked the breakfast after midnight Mass. This sticks in my memory since he didn't usually do this. Terry and I will have to duke this one out, Bronx-style. Also, for those interested, this piece has been recorded by Jimmy Keane and his Chicago-based group Bohola on their Christmas album.
    Posted by: Jesse Winch | December 23, 2010 at 01:15 PM

Terence, Thank you for this. It reminds me of my first Christmas away from home (and several more), with the big noisy welcoming extended family of my Irish boyfriend (also a Terence) in Cohoes, NY. I was nervous about how I, a Jew from NYC environs, would be treated. I needn't have been. It was a great lesson for me, one that I have never forgotten and for which I'm still grateful. And, by the way, I have a "silver ice bucket rimmed with penguins"! Stacey
    Posted by: Stacey | December 23, 2010 at 01:22 PM

Terry - I shared this great poem and Mick Moloney's reading of it with my mother's Galway Irish Clan. They loved it. Thank you for sharing the wonderful memories of Uncle Paddy, Aunt Bridie, you and Jimmy in this uplifting and wonderful poem. Cuz Mary.
    Posted by: Mary Winch | December 23, 2010 at 01:31 PM

One of my favorites of yours Terry. Thanks for sharing. What a great vivid picture of those days :) love it, happy Christmas, Tina  P.S. see you for breakfast at your house tomorrow night ...
    Posted by: Tina Eck | December 23, 2010 at 01:42 PM

I love the suitcase full of treasures. Merry Christmas, Terence. Toby
    Posted by: Toby Thompson | December 23, 2010 at 01:57 PM

Terence: A classic, and like all great classics continues to give pleasure, and offer new ones, every time I read (or hear) it. Michael
    Posted by: Michael Lally | December 23, 2010 at 02:56 PM

I love this poem. All the memories that it brings back are the best kind of memories. I see the scenes unfolding in my mind's eye and can feel the pleasure and love shared by one and all. It makes me love you more each time I read it. Eileen
    Posted by: Eileen Reich| December 23, 2010 at 03:54 PM

Terence, this is lovely. You reveal the beauty of the ordinary in a most extraordinary way.
    Posted by: Bill McPherson | December 23, 2010 at 05:30 PM

Terence and all the Flynn-Winches, Greetings from your Loughrea neighbours in Gort! Chris Griffin
    Posted by: Christopher Griffin | December 23, 2010 at 06:26 PM

Oh, the power of the written word - Thank You, Terry!!! Sure, some of the names would change up here. It would be Jimmy & Tom Finucane from Tarbert Island, Kerry, on the boxes, and Marty O'Keefe, from across the river in Clare on the fiddle, with John D. singing the songs he'd make up for the occasion. Then a few days later, we would all make sure we got to the Harps Club (GAA) in time to help blow up the balloons for New Years Eve with the Harps Band of Jim Finucane, Tarbert, George Walker, fiddle, Limerick, and drummer John Park from Scotland, and another wonderful all-nighter would start!
    Posted by: Ted McGraw | December 23, 2010 at 07:45 PM

What a lovely poem. It captures a simpler time that we would all love to recreate. How lucky you are to have such wonderful memories. Merry Christmas
    Posted by: Barbara Talbot | December 24, 2010 at 12:05 AM

Terry: Ah, sweet poem, sweet memories, I knew not whether to laugh or cry... but I've got a couple of broken ribs, so the laughs are on hold for now. You've brought back to me the mysterious enchantment of Christmas mornings at the home of my grandparents, a Kerryman and a woman of Westmeath. One morning, unable to bear the wait, I snuck down early, opened several packages, among which was a small bottle of red nail polish (certainly not meant for me!), with which, in my excitement, I proceeded to paint all the other packages and their contents a very bright red. Ah well, where are the snows & c. Thanks very much for the beautiful post. In return, may I offer, in a perhaps not dissimilar vein, Ghosts of Christmas Past (1936-1942)? (Your ur-memory may recognize one or two of those celebrating merchant seamen.)
    Posted by: tom clark | December 24, 2010 at 03:26 AM

Dear Tom:  Thanks for the link to all those wonderful photographs. And for your comments here.  I hope you get all the nail polish on your Christmas list.
    Posted by: Terence Winch | December 24, 2010 at 09:27 AM

Wonderful recollection. I remember being shipped off to my great aunt's home in Rutherford, NJ nearly every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Margaret and her siblings were all raised in lower Manhattan and loved NYC. A trip to Macy's to see Santa was always included. The city was full of decorations and lights and was truly magic to young rural eyes. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
    Posted by: Jim Owens. | December 24, 2010 at 11:29 AM

"I believed in everything" --Terry, you're a gem. For video of a fantastic Winch reading: http://www.smartishpace.com/media/next/15/  Cheers!
    Posted by: Stephen Reichert | December 24, 2010 at 11:38 AM

Terence, this is one of my favorite pieces from the magnificent Boy Drinkers -- one of my favorite books. "Celebration" settles the glorious, fleeting beauty of life, and restores clarity to the old cliche about love being all we need. I think I need a drink.
    Posted by: Doug Lang | December 24, 2010 at 06:17 PM

Curiously, I was just talking about this with some friends on our way to church at 4 PM Christmas eve. I was telling them about when I was a boy, we would head out to Grandma Kelly’s farm near Corcoran, MN. We’d be joined by several of my Mother’s siblings, and my cousins. Off to St. Thomas Church we’d go for midnight mass, how strange to be up so late to go to mass, I thought the whole thing pretty cool. Then we’d all head back to the farm house, and a huge breakfast would be made and eaten before we’d head home in the middle of the night. We’d wake a few hours later to what seemed hundreds of packages under the tree, and all kinds of unwrapped gifts from Santa. It was so festive, so memorable. No wonder it is so difficult to recapture that feeling today.
    Posted by: Michael Meuers | December 26, 2010 at 02:44 PM

Terry, your memories and depictions are gifts to your friends. Thanks so much.
    Posted by: Joe DeZarn | December 27, 2010 at 11:07 AM

Dear T: Thanks for the comment. I hope you had a great Christmas. See you soon (Brendan's?).yrs, T
    Posted by: Terence Winch | December 27, 2010 at 11:22 AM

Terry-- "Celebration" is just as wonderful each time I read it. It captures the great Irish family Christmas that I never knew but still imagine. I live my missing Irish childhood vicariously through your work like this. Irishpete
    Posted by: Peter Kissel | December 28, 2010 at 03:18 PM

Ah Terry, I am so grateful for the memories you have stored in you heart and for the gift you have of giving them life on the printed page. Thank you! I loved the photos too. Best wishes for the brand New Year, Beth
    Posted by: Beth Rake | December 28, 2010 at 11:30 PM

Terry: It hardly seems real now: PJ, your dad and my brother Brian. The poem and photos are great. Hope you and your family are well. Keith Keenan
    Posted by: Keith Keenan | January 10, 2011 at 07:05 PM

A delight, Terry. Thanks for concocting a true nostalgia sweet as the buzz of a Seven-and-Seven that was the drink of choice of the uncles -- but still slipping in those dashes of signature Winchian wry (excuse the pun). Like bitters, they balance nostalgia back into its true complexity, particularly at the end:

I believed in everything: Jesus our Lord, Santa

our magic benefactor, my parents the immortal source

of the ongoing celebration that could never end.
    Posted by: Michael Whelan | February 04, 2011 at 10:30 PM

Same with Italians with sausage and pepper sandwiches. The same river runs below everyone on Christmas. This poem is eternal.
    Posted by: Grace Cavalieri | December 24, 2023 at 09:47 AM

https://group.irishecho.com/2011/02/capital-verse-and-capitol-music-of-terence-winch/   The above link is to my February 9, 2011, “Ceol” (Irish for “music”) column in The Irish Echo weekly newspaper, for which I wrote on Irish traditional music for 20 years (1991-2011). I hope that my posting of this unusual “comment” will not come off as self-aggrandizing or self-congratulatory. My intention is simple: to reaffirm the enduring importance of Terence Winch’s OWN poetry for all his Best American Poetry enthusiasts, of whom I’m one. Besides, ’tis the season for such gestures … part of an overall “Celebration.” By the way, THE IRISH RIVIERA: SONGS & TUNES FROM IRISH AMERICA is the latest album (2023) from the Winch Family Band and Co. It concludes with Terence Winch’s most popular song composition: “When New York Was Irish.” HAPPY HOLIDAYS! P.S. Great photo by Susan!
    Posted by: Dr. Earle Hitchner | December 24, 2023 at 11:05 AM

What a wonderful, vivid remembrance! My family also had one of those penguin ice buckets, which was passed on to me and will make its appearance tonight for Christmas Eve 2023! Have a great holiday! Peter
    Posted by: Peter Bushyeager | December 24, 2023 at 11:13 AM

“Your God was a Jew. Christ was a Jew like me.” —Leopold Bloom. We’re all a little Irish and a little Jewish at Christmas. Happy Holidays. Nollaig Shona
    Posted by: Bernard Welt | December 24, 2023 at 11:46 AM

Terry, That Christmas boy in you remains strong and vital. Young Irish life is a school for love. God is in there and as a festive guest of the soul. Much love, Richard
    Posted by: Richard Giannone | December 24, 2023 at 12:01 PM

Dear Terence, Your CELEBRATION wonderfully enacts just that in hardest of times. "Voices lifted." VIVA POETRY!
    Posted by: Joan Retallack | December 24, 2023 at 12:12 PM

Love this poem of yours Terence. I can see the "solid men of the parish" and smell the incense and I think I always will. Merry Christmas all.
    Posted by: Murphy | December 24, 2023 at 12:30 PM

Thank you, Terence, and Merry Christmas. Not a false note here. Proof enough in this poem and story, these moments of clarity in this world without end. "...the entire / supernatural infrastructure of Bronx Irish culture," and more.

My father put out apple pie

and a glass of milk for Sanny, the remaining traces

of which on Christmas morning were proof enough

for me and my brother Jimmy of the entire

supernatural infrastructure of Bronx Irish culture.

    Posted by: Thomas Devaney | December 24, 2023 at 12:38 PM

I happily join in the celebration of Terence Winch's "Celebration," a poem that has only gained in luster and resonance since its appearance in Boy Drinkers in 2007. I still have a vivid memory of Limerick-born musician Mick Moloney (1944-2022) giving an inspired recitation of the poem on stage at "An Irish Christmas" matinee concert on December 18, 2010, inside Donaghy Theatre of the "old" Irish Arts Center in Manhattan. As I affirmed elsewhere in the past, Terence's poem elicits the best kind of laughter, rooted in recognition and empathy, where readers' own memories merge with the ones he so engagingly limns. "It's a matter of depth of engagement and musical register, a matter of what is at stake for yourself in a poem," noted Seamus Heaney. I can think of no better exemplar and example of Heaney's sage words than Terence Winch and his poem "Celebration." It's a much-needed tonic for these troubled times.
    Posted by: Dr. Earle Hitchner | December 24, 2023 at 01:54 PM

Thank you - so beautiful and inspiring. Merry Christmas to you all. Karen Sagstetter
    Posted by: Karen Sagstetter | December 24, 2023 at 02:02 PM

Merry Christmas Terence, Susan, Michael, and everyone else our there! This great flood of images puts me in the exact place I want to be as we move toward the height of Christmas tonight. Like Terence, as a kid I believed in everything on those nights, and having reading this today I realize I still do. Thanks for sending this out to us Terence! Good Yule!
    Posted by: Don Berger | December 24, 2023 at 03:23 PM

Superb photo Susan! I'll see it in my dreams tonight!
    Posted by: Don Berger | December 24, 2023 at 03:36 PM

So fortunate, all of us who have magical childhood memories of this wondrous night, but few so fortunate as the Winch brothers, and few so eloquent as Terence in conveying the magic.
    Posted by: Robert Engelman | December 24, 2023 at 09:31 PM

Great poem! Herod thwarted!
    Posted by: Susan Campbell | December 25, 2023 at 12:02 AM

This poem makes me remember those Christmas days in the Bronx, even though I was never there.
    Posted by: Geoffrey Himes | December 25, 2023 at 07:29 AM

Wow! I love this poem! Thanks for posting it!!
    Posted by: Nin Andrews | December 26, 2023 at 10:57 AM

I love this poem! Nollaig Shona dhuit.
    Posted by: Jennifer O’R | December 26, 2023 at 02:52 PM

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