Christmas Eve

As there was little more they could do for Vicky DeJesus, and as her family had requested it, the hospital on Christmas Eve sent her home to die. She was carried past the artificial Christmas tree in the kitchen and up the twisting stairs to the sunny room on the third floor of their North Philadelphia apartment. There she was laid beneath a picture of Christ and a greeting card that proclaimed: "Home for the Holidays. " Four days later, on Monday, at 7:15 p.m. she stopped breathing.

A hearing is scheduled for today at the Montgomery County Youth Center for a 17-year-old borough resident charged with shooting a teenager in the head while playing with a gun Christmas Eve. The victim, Rashaan Mims, 17, of the 1000 block of Willow Street, died after he was removed from life support at Hahnemann University Hospital about 4 p.m. Christmas Day, County Coroner Halbert E. Fillinger Jr. said. Accompanied by a relative, the 17-year-old who allegedly fired the gun turned himself in to law-enforcement authorities about 11 a.m. Christmas Day, police said.

And lo, on Christmas Eve, a thousand Jews returned to Egypt (the dance club, not the country) to celebrate the Matzoball (the gathering, not the food). They came from Delaware, New Jersey, and all regions of Pennsylvania. They came looking for the one. Or at least the one right now. Christmas Eve has become the biggest Jewish singles night of the year. In Philadelphia alone there were three events - the Matzoball at Egypt on Columbus Boulevard, the "To Life" party at World Fusion, and the Bridges Chinese banquet at the Kingdom of Vegetarians restaurant in Chinatown.

Today, Rita Gizzio will have her work cut out for her. She will be preparing and cooking fish - lots of it. Each year on Dec. 24, or la vigilia, Italian Americans serve the traditional seven-fish dinner, the non-meat meal that represents abstinence before the Christmas celebration. It seems no one is absolutely sure how the tradition started. As with many traditions, its origins have become shrouded with the passing of time. But for every Italian, there is a different theory why seven fish dishes are prepared for the pre-Christmas feast.

Forget Black Friday. That's for the amateur shopper. Time abounds and the sales are great. Shopping on Christmas Eve, though, is for the brave soul. It ranks up there with Hercules and his 12 labors. But despite well-intentioned promises to hit the stores earlier, year after year last-minute shoppers pack the malls the day before Christmas. Here are the stories of some who survived the Christmas Eve rush: 8:30 a.m. Cherry Hill Mall's parking lot is more than three-quarters full.

For a very long time, I dreamed of seven fishes. In the center of my mind's flat-screen there was a long table dressed in Christmas Eve finery, overflowing with platters of fried smelts, spaghetti with anchovies, grilled sardines, steamed mussels, baked stuffed clams, golden calamari rings, and perhaps a whole fish stuffed with lemon and herbs. Because this fantasy was set in Philly, a lovable Italian American matron lorded over the meal, Isgro's cannolis were served, and strings of twinkling lights were suspended above a block of rowhouses.

A family is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads police to a South Philadelphia teenager who disappeared Christmas Eve. Jason Vu's 4-year-old sister was the last to see him. He put her in her room about 8 a.m. Dec. 24, said "Bye," and shut the door. Vu, 14, left his house at 23d and Wolf Streets that morning without his cell phone, wallet, or prescription glasses, said his aunt, Michelle Nguyen. He has not been heard from since. Nguyen yesterday said her nephew was quiet and reserved, and had never run away from home.

After more than 40 years, it will be a silent night this Christmas Eve for the Bergen Square neighborhood's lively church choir, La Tuna de la Alegria. Every Sunday until recently, choir members of all ages - many of them second- or third-generation relatives of those who founded the Camden choir in 1969 - sang and played traditional Puerto Rican religious music for Masses at Our Lady of Mount Carmel/Fatima Church. Two years ago, the Camden Diocese ordered the parish to merge with North Camden's Holy Name and downtown's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

To Italian Catholics it's a custom. An old family tradition. Many of them simply call it the feast of the seven fishes, or just the seven fishes. It can range from baked eel to small sardines fried in oil with garlic, and even baccala. But in all its forms, it is a special seven-course Christmas Eve festive fish dinner that has been passed on from one generation to the next. As with many traditions, when you search for origin and symbolism, you discover a variety of meanings.

"For 18 hours, it is very intense," Jo Ann Morgano said of the whirlwind two days leading up to the open house that she and her husband, Ignazio, host every year for 40 guests. One look at Morgano's last-minute to-do list for the party would daunt even an experienced cook. The Marlton mother and marketing executive - helped this year by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law who were visiting from Cleveland - made stromboli and cream puffs from scratch, cooked and cleaned 15 pounds of jumbo shrimp, made 110 clams casino, fried smelts, skewered chicken for satay, tried a new recipe for crab pancakes bound with bechamel, cooked two roasts, made two sauces for the filet mignon and a cocktail sauce for the shrimp, made two vegetable dishes and a pasta, and assembled a beautiful tiramisu in a footed trifle bowl.