Christmas on our own

Hey, Grant, did you make these? We love them and they look really good on our mantle with Santa holding them. Thank you. from Grammy and Papa

Much to the surprise of both Bob and me, we had a wonderful Christmas yesterday. Being on our own and so far away from the kids, I was sure that I would be teary all day and Bob was sure he would have to put up with my tearfulness all day but that didn't happen.

We received some gifts from kids and had a few for each other.

After a cup of coffee for Bob and tea for me, we opened our gifts.

They were all great and very much appreciated but the nicest thing about the day was relaxing together and having no responsibilities at all for the whole day. We didn't even have to cook a dinner.

We were invited next door (Giusseppe and Mimma's) for Christmas dinner with the Fortunato family. The food was definitely not what we're used to having for Christmas dinner, no turkey or ham, no sweet potatoes. Instead we had a delicious Sicilian dinner and good conversation with friends. We aren't fluent in Italian by any means but between the little English they speak and the little Italian we speak we are able to carry on decent conversations.

After dinner, Roberto and Bob worked together to clean out the chimney of our house. We had tried to have a fire in the fireplace a couple of times as the weather got cooler but got a house full of smoke---not good for breathing. Roberto got on the roof and saw that we had a huge bird's nest in the top of the chimney. After the nest was cleared out, we could enjoy a cozy Christmas evening reading our new books in front of a beautiful fire.

I do hope you have all had equally beautiful days for Christmas and the new year brings spiritual growth, good friends both old and new, and families to love. God Bless and Happy New Year.

It's Christmastime

I feel I must say a bit about Christmas. I really wish we could be home and see you all and spend time just sitting together and enjoying each other’s company but that would not be a wise choice for us this year. Bob and I decided that we really need to stay in Italy. I will miss you very much…both family and friends. Take care of yourselves ( I see a lot of bad, bad weather there) and have a very Merry Christmas.

I was so sad about being away from family for Christmas I had decided we just wouldn’t have a traditional Christmas this year. We wouldn’t decorate the house or open presents Christmas morning or listen to Christmas music (and everyone knows how I love Christmas music). Maybe instead of buying gifts for each other Bob and I could take a short trip. Or choose one big thing we both want and buy that together (as if we could ever decide on one thing we both want).

I lasted until December 7. .....(add thought bubble here)........"Well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to buy a poinsettia," “Oh, they’re only two and three Euro? Then I think we need five.” …… (later)……. “Those poinsettias look kind of bare just sitting there, maybe we could look at the store and see if they have a garland we can accent with.” Etc. etc. etc. Here’s some photos of our house now that we “didn’t” do Christmas.

Poor Bob, he doesn't know what to do about Christmas because I keep changing my mind about the whole thing.

I still don’t know what Bob and I will do for Christmas but whatever it is, we’ll have a great time and enjoy being together. And, we’ll call all the kids to wish them a wonderful Christmas Day.

Speaking of Christmas, I’ve been practicing with people from the several chapel congregations, both Protestant and Catholic, for the annual Christmas cantata. For those of you who have been in a program like this, you know that when you gather for the first time you think it will never work. So many missed notes, missed beats, missed words. But, slowly, week by week you see improvement and even though two weeks before the performance you’re still thinking it’s not going to work, suddenly, at the last practice it all seems to fall into place. It’s a wonderful sound. The sopranos, altos, tenors and basses all doing their parts to make beautiful harmonies. Though you’ve been singing it all along and you’ve sung in cantatas all your life, the amazing beauty of it coming together still catches you by surprise. We sang (a teaser) at the Catholic and the Protestant services Sunday morning then performed the cantata on Sunday night. It turned out even better that I could have hoped for. And if you ever want to see our cantata, Bob taped it.

I feel like the Kranks from the movie “Skipping Christmas.” So much for not celebrating Christmas. I love Christmastime--------but still miss my family.

Train Ride around the Volcano

Okay, I really am going to talk about going around the mountain on a train but first I need to make a suggestion. If you ever want a really great winter “drink” you should go to the store and buy the kind of deep chocolate pudding that you actually have to cook. Follow the directions except add about a fourth cup more milk and when it’s mixed together and cooked, pour it into four cups and call a friend or two to share it with. Remember, it must be served hot and eaten with a spoon. Wow! To add a bit of pizzazz you can put a touch of flavoring in it as soon as you take it off the stove, ameratto, almond, let your imagination dictate what you want. I can’t imagine anything ruining the taste.

We got up really early last Saturday and drove to the base to catch the bus for our Circumetnea (pronounced: cheer-come-et-nay-ya) adventure. We went to Catania and got on an old train that travels around the mountain stopping at almost every town along the way. The train actually has the old time whistle and bumps along the track in such an informal way that at one point the engineer stopped to let the conductor jump out and pick oranges off nearby trees to give to people on the train. Time meant nothing that day and we enjoyed seeing Mount Etna from every angle. I can’t say the countryside was beautiful. The view we had most of the time was of giant walls of lava or a field that seemed to grow lava rocks. Bob said we could make a fortune on lava table tops if we could figure out a way to move them all and knew how to polish them.

We stopped in the small town of Randazzo, the highest town and the town closest to the mouth of the volcano. This is the same place that is pictured in Ken and Lynette’s blog—the church made of lava. The weather didn’t seem to know whether to be nice or misty that day so we went into several shops and enjoyed the sights in line with the weather. Once, when it got too misty to walk we ducked into a pastacceria to have a mid-morning snack. The advertisement on the wall said they served 32 different chocolate drinks. Could I resist? Of course not! The one I got tasted just like the chocolate pudding I mentioned before with probably a touch of cherry flavoring in it. I definitely had my chocolate fix for the day.

Continuing around the mountain we ended at Giarro, just north of Catania, where we transferred to a super modern train to get us back to the train station in Catania. I’ve never been on a train so nice and smooth-riding----and quiet. It runs on electricity and you don’t hear any engine noise at all. If we had trains like this in the States we might have less gasoline problems, everyone would be riding the train.