The old men play serious complicated card games, but all Sicilian families play simpler card games after eating lunch at Christmas. Most villages and town squares have a full-time squadron of old men who have been kicked out of the house by their wives (like putting out the cat at night), and who play together every day to pass the time. They smack their winning cards down rather like a butcher hacking through bones with a meat cleaver. They all shout loud enough to startle the dead at certain card plays. The fishermen in my village are always out on the seafront, playing cards on upturned barrels between their fishing excursions. Sicilians have their own unique playing cards.
