Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Buon Natale! (Just a bit late)

I have been in Italy for over 4 and a half months, and that's not really something I like to think about too much. It's all too easy to start worrying about the day when I will be wrenched out of this little world that has been created in a far away land, an adventure that seems to have just begun. But that's for another day, another time, another post.

I have had the privilege to spend the Christmas holidays in Italy, an experience that I will never forget, both for its joys and sorrows. The winter holidays are considered by many to be one of the hardest time periods for exchange students for several reasons. The most obvious reason is that in many countries in the world, the winter holidays are associated with unique celebrations that very often center around family and togetherness. All you have to do is plug into social media for a day somewhere around Christmas time to be flooded with a never-ending stream of "SO happy to be home again!" "It's great to finally have the family together again", and "Nothing like a Christmas surrounded by family!". We even have the iconic phrase "Home for the Holidays", to drive home the importance of family and being home around Christmas time. So clearly when you happen to be just a little far from your family and loved ones during this time period, not only is it personally difficult to be away, but it is also difficult to accept a season of new traditions, new celebrations, and an absence of the special little things that have made the holidays the holidays ever since you were a young child.

Many of the exchange students found ourselves sitting at home just a few days from Christmas, realizing that we had never felt so un-christmassy in our lives. None of us could put a finger on it, but there's something about the compilation of little things we barely notice.......the bustle of baking, an annual holiday open house, picking out a tree, christmas fairs, seeing the stockings hung on the fireplace, dress up days at school, packages coming in the mail...........
And this is not to say that Italy does have its own celebratory traditions for Christmas....if anything, I might argue that it is an even bigger deal in Italy than in the United States, but I still found myself uncharacteristically somber on December 23rd , wondering if it was possible that Christmas Eve was the next day.

But enough slightly dreary reflective stuff for now, because Christmas in Italy is a great celebration that deserves a blog post for its amazingness.

In Italy, Christmas Eve is arguably as celebrated just as much, if not more, than Christmas Day. On Christmas eve, it is traditional to have a large dinner composed entirely of seafood. Of course, I know that every family has their own way of doing things, and I had no idea if my family would celebrate traditionally or not, but they truly came through with a fantastic Christmas Eve feast. Christmas Eve was celebrated with family, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, and food. Lots of food. We barely ate lunch on Christmas Eve in preparation for the dinner feast, and this turned out to be a good thing, because for dinner we ate no less that 7 different seafood themed dishes: smoked salmon, shrimp, roe pate, scallops, lobster, seafood risotto, and sea bass. The meal was amazing, and truly unforgettable. Gifts were also opened on Christmas Eve....apparently it is traditional to wait until midnight, but since we were graced with the presence of a toddler, that wasn't exactly realistic.

On Christmas Day, I traveled with my family to Padova (Padua) in order to eat a Christmas lunch with a different side of the family. This lunch was also unbelievable huge, and consisted not only of some seafood leftovers from the night before, but various different dishes containing meat as well. 



Christmas Eve dinner preparations
Christmas Eve dinner
A tiny portion of the seafood that we ate that night
Gift-opening time!

Christmas in Italy is without doubt a celebration which embodies two of the most important cornerstones of Italian culture: family and food, and I am so grateful that I got to partake in it.