Christmas

Christmas is more than a date on the calendar in the book: it marks a recurring ritual of respect among mob figures, a season of practical aid to poor families, and a moment when Jimmy Hoffa addressed a national audience amid allegations of jury interference. These uses place private loyalties and public controversy on the same annual calendar.

A recurring ritual of respect

Frank Sheeran recalled that each Christmas and Easter brought a party at which he was expected to show respect to a particular boss by giving him an envelope. In 1961, he had already given Russell Bufalino his Christmas envelope but had not yet given him the Easter one; their dinner together came only weeks after the Christmas party. The timing mattered because the envelope was part of a repeated custom, not an isolated payment.

The practice changed the following year. Bufalino stopped accepting envelopes from Sheeran and instead began giving him presents, including jewelry. The shift preserved their exchange while reversing its direction: what had been a seasonal display of deference became a gift from a powerful friend to a man he treated as close to family.

Seasonal aid and obligation

Christmas also appears as one occasion when Bufalino and his close friend Kelly Mannarino provided for poor people in their areas. Sheeran described food being distributed at Thanksgiving and Christmas, as well as whenever people needed it, and coal being supplied in winter. He grouped Bufalino, Mannarino, and Angelo among men who opposed drugs and took care of local people. In this account, the holiday marks part of a broader, continuing pattern of material assistance rather than a one-day gesture.

Christmas Eve in public

The holiday’s public meaning is sharper in the account of Jimmy Hoffa’s trial. After a sequestered jury reported that it was hopelessly deadlocked and was dismissed, the judge spoke in court about indications of improper contacts with prospective jurors and announced plans for a grand jury investigation. On Christmas Eve, Hoffa told a television audience that it was “a disgrace…for anyone to make a statement that this jury was tampered with.”

The moment sets the ritual calendar of the private world against the reach of television and the legal process. Christmas, elsewhere associated with envelopes, gifts, food, and coal, became the occasion for Hoffa to contest publicly the charge that the jury system had been subverted.