Christmas Traditions

A few years ago I realized that we didn't really have traditions around Christmas, and so we sat down and made a basic plan for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We don't need anything big, just basic and reliable.

[When I was a kid, on Christmas Eve Christine and I delivered my mom's Christmas treats to friends and relatives in Waltham and Milton and Westwood and Belmont and returned with cookies and fudge and fruit cake and pumpkin bread.  We snacked on Mom's treats some more, went to mass, then hung out with one set of cousins til almost midnight.  It wasn't fancy or complicated; it was reliable and fun.

On Christmas Day we ate a family breakfast of my mom's coffee cake and egg casserole, opened gifts, and hung out until my mom's sister and mom arrived for dinner ("hung out" meaning peeled potatoes, set the table, folded laundry, made presents neat under the tree, tried on new clothes, etc...).  Turkey dinner, and then a drive to one of my dad's sister's houses for the big cousin gathering, even if this meant a drive to the Cape at 8pm Christmas night.]

I wanted our kids to have some basic concrete traditions, too, so we looked at what we basically were already doing, named it, and called it our traditions.  I imagine that our kids would say that these traditions are, simply put, reliable and fun.

From the moment we said yes to coming to Italy this year, I wondered about how we were going to pull off Christmas.

Christmas Eve

Waltham Christmas Eve: eat at a restaurant; go to mass; drive around and look at lights; visit someone if it works; sit by the tree, open a gift, and eat ice cream sundaes.  Usually this looks like trying to get back from some last minute Christmas gift errand; hollering for someone to hurry up; rushing into a restaurant where really we were supposed to get a reservation but they accommodate us when we show up with four kids all dressed up and ready to eat; a child or two falling asleep in my lap at 5pm mass; a visit with our neighbor Bill Wiggin; presents; too much ice cream for all of us.  It's delightful.

Viterbo Christmas Eve: This year Sacra Famiglia doesn't have a Christmas Eve mass except at midnight, and while Daniel is game, I'm not.  I'm exhausted, still have wrapping to do, and am not willing to risk the kids' being vastly underslept and fussy for days.  Mary and Hannah have been asking to go ice skating since the mini-rink (either a half or third or fourth of a real ice rink) was set up in a piazza in Viterbo, about a seven minute walk from the apartment.  So late afternoon we all go (though Daniel lags to pull off some last minute shopping and then videos us when he arrives) -- including Connor in shorts and short sleeves.  It's small and unintimidating, and we feel super skating here in Italy -- we look okay skating here, not like when we're at the Waltham rink and six-year-old professional hockey players are zig-zagging around  usand through us as we steady ourselves or grab onto the wall.

No restaurants are open on Christmas Eve here in Viterbo, so Daniel makes chicken fajitas.  We eat late, and as full as we are, we find room for gelato sundaes with cookie (pseudo Oreos and Chips Ahoy) and candy toppings (Smarties which are not really American Smarties, but basically mini M and M's) and whipped cream and homemade hot fudge as we open a few gifts.  We're cozy, together, relaxed.

Daniel goes out to midnight mass solo with the promise that he'll go again with us on Christmas.

A few minutes later I hear the door click, and I yell out, "What's up?!"

Hannah answers, "Oh, it's me.  I was just putting up a sticky note beside Connor's stocking because these stockings don't have our names, and Santa needs to know which stocking is Connor's."  (She had labelled the others earlier.)

I'm not sure why Hannah had to open and close the apartment door to put a sticky note in the dining room, but I let it go.

Christmas Day

Planning Christmas breakfast was the first hurdle: we don't have a Belgian waffle maker here.  One year at home we borrowed Bill Wiggin's (see above), and then the next year I found one for $10 at the second-hand store on Moody Street, so Belgian waffles became the holiday breakfast with Mary in charge of the batter.  Now we've got a dilemma: Mary wants pancakes; Sebastian wants poached eggs; Connor wants cereal; Hannah's not sure what she wants; Daniel wants whole wheat pancakes; I want cereal.  Daniel and I say, "You know, it's fine.  Each person can have what he or she wants.  No big deal."  This solution does not satisfy Mary or Sebastian: we all have to have the same thing for Christmas breakfast.  I mention that I saw a waffle maker at Lidl; Daniel says no way, we're not buying a waffle maker.

Sebastian says, "I haven't gotten any Christmas gifts yet.  How about I get a waffle maker for the whole family for Christmas?"

In the morning, we let the kids get us up at 8am, and we all open presents.

Mary makes the waffle batter, we sit down to the same family breakfast, and the kids eat more whipped cream than waffle.

At the back of church at 11:32am, I stop because the priest and servers are processing in.  The priest that says the 11:30 mass every Sunday sees me, nods, and says something to me that I don't entirely catch, but I hear, "from America," and he gives me a kind, knowing look.  I feel seen.

I sit at mass, Hannah and Connor alternating on my lap because there are no seats left, and I let the Italian sing and speak around me.  It's fine that I don't get a lot of it.  Daniel told me the other day that he treats mass as meditation, not worrying about what he's not getting.  And he doesn't try to understand what all the words mean; rather, he tries just to understand which Italian words are said.  I try this.  It's nice.  And sitting there I think how this is, even if feeling entirely normal and ordinary, pretty crazy: we're here living in Italy and going to our regular church for Christmas.  We're together and healthy and happy, and we're at mass on Christmas.  We're here.  Never would I have imagined what this would really look like.  I guess that this is what it looks like: squeezed in at mass, understanding some, spacing out some, hoping the kids endure a little longer in dress-up clothes, liking the music, feeling grateful.  Sounds about right.

We open gifts and color or watch Curious George or read or nap or paint or try on new clothes or build legos or try to clean up.  We eat (the agreed upon meal of) meatball subs and Sprite for lunch; sausage and veggies for dinner; tiramisu and cannoli (Garibaldi pasticceria was open after mass -- wonderfully shocking for me) for dessert.  We stay up really late, too late, just hanging about.

Before he goes to bed, Sebastian tells me, "This was a really nice day."