Holidays in Italy

There is no Halloween.  Without Halloween, it is hard to know when to start thinking about Thanksgiving.  But there is no Thanksgiving.  So there is no landmark to start the insanity of Christmas, my favorite insane time of the year.  On Dec. 6, local Italians will celebrate San Nicolo (sometimes called the original Santa), and I'm happy to join in because I hear it involves gluhwein and presents for little ones.  In the meantime, though, we couldn't just skip Thanksgiving, so we had our own.

My cookies--I substituted shredded white
chocolate for both chocolate chips and frosting.
They were still pretty tasty!

Yesterday we celebrated (late) Thanksgiving.  Tom was already back in the States, so there were eleven of us (eight Americans, one Spaniard who grew up in MA, and two boy/girlfriends of American students).  The kids made mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, dressing, rolls, green beans, spinach salad, stuffed mushrooms, carrots, chicken, ribs, and seven desserts.  There was no turkey, but we didn’t miss it.  The food was good but not great—ingredients are different here, so without tons of practice it’s difficult to make things taste like you “expect.”  I managed to make a close approximation of my favorite cookies (the white choc and cranberry kind) that were pretty close to the US version, and certainly good enough to eat!  The evening ended with “Elf.”

I tried to explain to our Italian/Dutch neighbors what Thanksgiving was really about yesterday, and that it really comes down to food and family.  I enjoyed the company of the students yesterday, and I know that they appreciated having an afternoon together where we could all laugh about how our English changed since we arrived (speaking primarily in the present tense, asking questions by adding the word “yes?” at the end of a sentence) and not having to use in the metric system (you would be surprised how often measurements come up during a normal day).  I wonder if the day made them miss home as much as I did—not a specific place, but the company of old friends and old jokes; playing games together and eating plenty of comfort foods.

The extent of our holiday
decorations in Italy.

Now that the day is over, I can officially think about Christmas.  We’ll spend the holidays in New Jersey.  I hope these two weeks pass quickly and I can’t wait to see old friends and holiday lights and watch bad movies on tv!  I’m even almost looking forward to finishing the holiday shopping.  Almost.