The Dream Diary of Italy

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Monday, 24 December

Christmas Eve. The night before Christmas. This will be my first Christmas without my family and friends. I am excited to see what Italians do for their Christmas and what it is like in their family.

The Christmas celebrations started around 5:30pm. Santa Claus arrives around 6:30pm for the kids and they then open all their presents. The adults go for drinks (in Italian it is called the apperitivo) while the children eat their food at home. Then dinner is served and the socialising begins. Traditionally the food on the 24^th is fish dishes.

For this Christmas Eve dinner the little girl (Giulia) decided she was going to wear her little Christmas girl outfit which was very cute. We arrived at the grandparents and we had to send the children to hide in another room so the “Santa Claus” could bring the presents. Unfortunately we had to wait for the one uncle to arrive who was late.

Eventually he arrived and we could let the children come and open their presents. I was pleasantly surprised to find 3 presents with my name on them as I wasn’t expecting anything at all. I got given a gorgeous turtle paper weight, a bag that is perfect for the snow and the mountain holiday and last but most definitely not least a purple hoodie jersey that has a cream coating inside that makes it so very warm. I absolutely adore them.

Dinner involved fish. Starters was an octopus, potatoes and olive salad with lemon juice which was quite refreshing. I skipped the next course which involved pasta with mussels and clams which I do not particularly like but is a big tradition here. The next course was cooked fish with a coleslaw-like salad. I quite enjoy this course as the mayonnaise was homemade and deliciously creamy. Desert was these yummy nutty biscuits, panatone (a big cake with fruit), nuts in chocolate and even my South African Soet Koekies graced the table and were a great hit.

The entertainment for the evening was karaoke. This was hilarious as most of the songs chosen where in English and the family do not speak English very well so it sounds like mumbling half the time. I got roped into singing songs as I am English and I could actually say half the words to the songs. Though I did warn them that there might be a few broken windows if I sang they persisted. Luckily no windows were broken.

All in all it was a very enjoyable evening.

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