Last-minute holiday shoppers line up early on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx ahead of Christmas Eve
NEW YORK - The countdown is on to prepare the Christmas feast.
Shoppers can expect stores to be packed Saturday as people look for those missing and hard-to-find ingredients.
It's the Christmas Eve-Eve, the last Saturday before Christmas, and people are rushing to get those last-minute gifts, and maybe some last-minute ingredients, too, to get the holiday dinner on the table to celebrate with family and friends.
In Little Italy in the Belmont section of the Bronx, there were a lot of shoppers lining up even before the same came up. A lot of the last-minute holiday shopping in the area consists of food. Many Italian Americans share a Christmas Eve tradition - that's to serve seven different seafoods.
As in years past, families lined up as early as 6 a.m. to shop for the Feast of Seven Fishes.
While most of the products they need are widely available elsewhere, it has become a Christmas week tradition to come to Little Italy in the Bronx with their shopping lists.
Business owners say, without a doubt, December 23 is their busiest day of the year, with customers coming as far from eastern Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and South Jersey.
"It is 'Cheesemas.' It's 'Merry Cheesemas,'" one woman waiting on line before dawn joked. "We've been doing it for years. It's the best tradition."
"The mozzarella. It's all the mozzarella. Nowhere else like it," said another.
"Honestly, the food is unbelievable. It really is. Everything they have here, it's really good, and if you wait too long, you'll be here for hours," one man said. "We like to get here early. Come nice and early."
"This is the best mozzarella shop in alll Little Italy. And all of the other goodies in there. I've been doing this since I'm little with my grandmother. Ten years old, we come down here, and wait on this line. The line will be all the way back there soon," one man said. "Then we go to the soppresatta place. You go down there, they're all hanging from the top. The best place for soppressatta, and olives and cheese is right down the block. Then the Terranova bread, all the way down, and then the prosciutto bread, and then the pastry shop."
