Buon Natale!

In the past 14 years, I have not spent a single Christmas away from home. Every year my family has exactly the same routine - wake up in the morning (never too early), open loads of presents one person at a time (which always takes at least a couple hours), sip our hot chocolate, listen to Christmas music, eat a delicious Christmas brunch cooked by my mom, and lounge around all day doing absolutely nothing but thinking about how much we love all our new presents.

Fourteen years... exactly the same... and I love it.

But this year was different.

I've never been away from home on Christmas and especially never been away from family. But I discovered something about the experience that was quite encouraging: family is all around me, everywhere I go, even though they may not be related by blood. The Pugliese family has taken me in as one of their own, and on Christmas day I felt completely at home taking part of Christmas celebrations with a new family. I won't deny that it was difficult to be away from my mom, sister, and dad on such a special holiday, but I can't imagine a better place to be if not with them than here with my Italian family.

The celebrations started on Christmas Eve. I woke up in the late morning and Zoila told me that today was the day for Pancakes. We had been waiting and trying to find the perfect day to make ourselves a delicious American breakfast, and the right time had finally come. Maria Vittoria and I set to work preparing the batter, and Zoila went into town to get some "bacon." You can't exactly find your typical bacon here in Italy, but Zoila made a special request at the butcher shop for her meat to be cut in strips. It turned out to be pretty good! Not too much later, we sat down to an amazing, All-American brunch, complete with bacon, eggs, delicious pancakes, and even Maple Syrup (thanks to former au pairs that had left some behind!).

I can't really remember what I did the rest of the afternoon, but I do remember our dinner :) (It's the holidays... everything has to do with food right now). Aurelio's dad came over for dinner, and Zoila cooked clams and salmon for them and the kids. The unfortunate seafood-hater in me requested a chicken breast instead, so I indulged in my first piece of chicken since my arrival in Italy. It was delicious. Considering that chicken is my favorite meat, I have no idea how I have made it this long without eating it. I guess pasta is just that good! Along with my meat I had a salad of mixed greens, which I made sure to eat before the rest of my meal while everyone else enjoyed it after their main course, and bread with butter rather than olive oil. There's no better way to celebrate the holidays than to spend a whole day eating my own country's traditional food!

After dinner, I started getting antsy because I had been in the house all day. I kept thinking about the Christmas Eve service at my church back at home and was really wishing I could go to it. It was really difficult being in a place on Christmas Eve where there was nowhere I could go to celebrate (in my own language) the birth of our Savior. There was absolutely no evangelical or English church to go to, so I decided my best, and only, option would be to try Christmas Eve Mass in one of the Catholic churches around here. Earlier this week, Zoila told me about a time that she and Aurelio went to a Christmas Eve Mass in St. Francesco's Basilica in Assisi. She said it was so packed that they couldn't even get into the church; they ended up watching the service on a jumbo screen outside in the courtyard. Even though I knew there was a church nearby in the center of town that I could go to for mass, I kept thinking about the Basilica in Assisi and how famous it is, and I knew that a service there would be a really neat experience. I didn't have anyone to go with, so I didn't know how I would get to the church or get home, but Aurelio offered to give me a ride there so I did something a little risky and went anyways.

Zoila spent quite awhile trying to make sure I would be safe and actually have a way to get back (taxis in Italy don't run at midnight on Christmas Eve), but for some reason I knew I would be just fine. Aurelio dropped me off in a parking lot below the church, and I walked through the town up a massive hill to get to the top where the Basilica is located. The walk was beautiful; all the town was lit up with twinkling lights and it couldn't have been a more perfect place to be on a Christmas Eve night.

When I got to the top of the hill, I paused to catch my breath and marveled at the beautiful Basilica. This is the same place that I had visited with Giulia about a month ago, although we didn't get a chance to go inside. At night it was even more beautiful, and this time I got to go in. As expected, the place was packed. I got there right at 11:00 as the service started, and there wasn't an empty seat in sight. I wormed my way up as far as I could get and stopped next to a niche where several nuns were seated. Planting myself in a comfortable standing position where I could see, I prepared myself to be on my feet for the next hour. A few minutes later, I noticed a woman on the top row of the steps next to me. We made eye contact and she gave me a look of extreme pity that I had to be standing the whole time. A couple more songs were sung and some more Scripture was read, and I glanced back up at her again to see her motioning to me to come sit up by her. I didn't see any empty space, but I figured there must have been room somewhere if she was suggesting that I sit there. I squeezed my way past the nuns, bumping into a few, stepping on everything, and evoking some intensely dirty looks from, and finally made it up to the top step. The woman and I were speaking broken Italian to each other when I eventually just blurted out, "Do you speak English?" She laughed and said of course! In a brief and quickly hushed conversation to follow I found out she is a Philippino Canadian that is now living near her boyfriend in Italy and was visiting his family who lives in... you guessed it... Foligno. In between the angry glances from the nuns, she found out I had come alone and offered to give me a ride home.

We spent the rest of the time wanting to talk, trying to start conversation, and then realizing again that we would not be able to talk without making everyone around us really angry. Meanwhile Mass went on.... and on and on and on. At midnight I was ready for it to end and had my purse and umbrella in hand, waiting to be dismissed. All of a sudden a processional of important-looking men started making their way through the aisles (I might actually know who these people were if I was Catholic, but seeing as how I've never been to a Catholic church in my life, I had no idea). I looked at my new friend next to me with wide eyes, wondering how much longer the service would be. She told me it might be another 30 minutes. I took a breath, sat down, and prepared myself to wait a little longer. Thirty minutes went by. An hour went by. An hour and a half went by... It was like the third Lord of the Rings Movie.... cruelly tricking you into thinking it's over multiple times, but never actually ending. The guy at the front read, the audience recited, we sat down, the choir sang, we stood up, we recited again, the guy at the front sang off key, we sat down again.... for two and a half hours. The service ended at 1:30 am on Christmas morning, and I hadn't even finished wrapping presents yet.

It might have been a fascinating service. Maybe it was even a good message. But unfortunately I will never know. I spent two and a half hours recognizing nothing but the words Spiritu Santu, Signore, and Dio. However, everything was redeemed at the very end when the choir sang Silent Night and O Come Let Us Adore Him. The whole time, I kept thinking that no Christmas Eve service can be complete without singing those two songs, but I knew that they weren't going to be sung at Mass. But I was wrong! As the very last song, the choir sang a beautiful Italian version of Silent Night, and I sang my heart out in English, not caring a bit how many nuns gave me dirty looks.

My new friend Amy and her boyfriend took me home and we finally got a chance to freely chat in the car on the way back. By the time I got home it was past two, and I hurried in to finish wrapping a few presents and somehow made it into bed around 3 am.

At 7:30, I heard a knock on my door and squeals from the kids about how many present Babbo Natale had brought last night. I stumbled out of bed, told myself I had five minutes to wake up, and then actually got excited for Christmas morning. By the time I got upstairs where our tree is, the kids had already gotten their presents in hand and were ready to start ripping them open the second I arrived. We spent the next half hour or so exchanging gifts and watching Maria Vittoria and Cesare's faces light up each time they opened a new toy. Kids make Christmas fun :)

Zoila and Aurelio were very sweet and got me several gifts, so I had plenty of presents to open as well. We had a fun and happy morning, and concluded our present-opening with Italian hot chocolate. It was kind of like being right back at home again. Around lunchtime, we headed over to Zoila's parents' house for a traditional Christmas dinner. For the first time since I've been in Italy, I had lasagna (my absolute favorite food!) and a ton of other food. After lasagna and crostinis, we had fried lamb and fried artichoke hearts, parmigiana, and lamb stew, followed by traditional panattone and torrone desserts. We were absolutely stuffed and, as usual, I ended up curled up on the couch taking a nap.

I woke up to a little voice yelling over me, "Megan! Megan!" and opened my eyes to see Cesare grinning as he taunted me. By this point, Cesare knows my name quite well, but he has all too much fun teasing me and calling me an former au pairs' name, just to get to me. It's kind of cute though ;-) We got all of our things together and went home to take a real nap.

The nap never happened for me, but that's okay. I had a much better time Skyping with my mom and sister. When I got home, it was about 10 am in Arizona and I called my mom. She told me that she and my sister were just about to start opening presents, so I video chatted with them on Skype and they set me up on a counter where I could see the tree, the presents, and both of them, and I joined them for their Christmas morning :) It was a wonderful blessing to be able to "be" with my family at such a special time. My mom even said later that it seemed like any other Christmas with me there, and nothing seemed different at all. So 14 years of the same Christmas, and I expected this year to be my first time away. It wasn't. I was still part of my family's Christmas traditions - hot chocolate, opening tons of presents, and lounging around lazily afterward. It was perfect.

The next day, December 26, is a holiday in Italy celebrating St. Stephen. Really that just means you get to eat more. We went out to Patrizia and Leo's house in Castagnola (the one in the old castle) for a dinner party with family and had, yet another, delicious and wonderful meal. This time, we ate bread and prosciutto, roasted lamb, amazing potatoes, tortellini, and traditional Italian cakes for dessert, along with Zoila's homemade Pineapple Upside Down cake. I had a really fun time hanging out with everyone in the family and laughing and playing games. It was one of my favorite parts of the holidays.

Here's a view of the outside of their house

Blowing bubbles with the kids

Me, Zoila, and Aurelio

After the party, Andrea invited me to go to a friend's house to jam with them for a little while. We met up with two of his friends and got to listen to them rock out on guitar and drums. They invited me to go to a pub with them afterward, so we headed into Perugia to find a place to hang out. At the pub we were met by a couple other friends and we spent the next few hours just talking and laughing and having a great time. All of Andrea's friends spoke English (enough for us to actually communicate), so for once I could actually participate in a conversation instead of blankly zoning out and getting lost in my own thoughts while everyone else is rattling off Italian all around me. I couldn't have asked for a better day and am so thankful that I got to have such a fun and blessed holiday this year!

Before I conclude, I might as well throw in a couple pictures from an outing I had the other night with Martina. She invited me to the birthday party of one of her friends, so I accompanied her to a really cool place called Dalton's Pub. The party was for a girl turning 17. I can't tell you how strange it felt hanging out with high school students in a pub. But here it's no big deal and definitely nothing unusual. We had a really fun time though, and I met lots of Martina's friends who were ready and willing to practice their English with me! As soon as I sat down at the table and ordered some food, all I could think about was the huge glass of ice water that I would get at any other restaurant in America. I so badly wanted a waiter with a pitcher of cold water to fill up my extra large cup endlessly throughout the night so that I could keep drinking as much water as I wanted. But that's not how Europe works. If you want water, you have to ask. If you want ice, you have to ask. And if you want a large cup, you don't have to ask because even if you do, they won't give it to you. There was a large Coca Cola cup on the table next to me that someone else was drinking soda from. Martina pointed to it and asked for a glass just like that one, with ice and water. Instead, they brought me a small bottle of water, and this cup partly filled with ice:

It was half the size of the Coca Cola cup. Moral of the story: be prepared to be perpetually thirsty in Europe if you come, and never, ever expect to drink a lot with your meal.