Christmas in Buffalo has taken over my mind and spirit. I was born and grew up there. I went to school there. I went back there for decades of Christmases. The first time a snowstorm at OâHare Airport in Chicago portended my first absence at Wigilia, I broke down at the pay phone. I was trying to fly home on Christmas Eve. Cindy Skrzycki I canât remember a time from my childhood when a whiff of dried mushrooms and butter and onions werenât creeping up the stairs to our upper flat as the food was being prepared downstairs.