'Tis The Season...

Piazza Maggiore. Bologna, Italy. Home.

Due Torre. Bologna, Italy. Home.

Welcome to the Christmas season on the other side of the sea. How weird! It lacks the charm of ABC Family's Countdown and the tacky neighborhood decorations, but Christmas is Christmas and it's glorious all the same. The weather feels like early March, not late December.

The city is lit beautifully. The families are buzzin' with preparations. The schools are closing for the vacation. I know four thousand miles away Ray is saying, "It's Christmaaaaas!" and Kathleen is singing with the belief that she is Mariah Carey. But hey! I'm here. So instead I'm listening to Fede singing "A Natale poi fare quello che tu non poi fare mai..." (it's still stuck in my head) and watching Carla go crazy in preparations for 15 people in this little happy apartment on the 25th.

Christmas had more or less snuck up on me. I cannot believe 1) it's Christmas or 2) that I've been here nearly four months. It feels like forever since I've been home but like I really just got here. Anywhoo, an American Miranda Christmas consists of lots of sweatpants, sleeping and snacks but an Italian Pieri Christmas consists of lots of food, family and FaceTime. Let's explore the different days, aye?

When Fede awakes, the house awakes! Luckily, midnight mass tired him out enough that I didn't mind when he passed out in my bed in the middle of sibling snuggles and gossip. I made myself a tea in the morning and sat at the kitchen table as Carla hustled and bustled around me. No, I'm not that rude - I was literally useless to help her though. So instead I'm here and daydreaming / thinking about my year / last Christmas / all the other glorious things...

As young as I am, it’s easy to pick the one of the best days ever (there are only so many). It makes it easy enough to define last Christmas as one of them:

1055 in December 2010 was lacking: a Christmas tree, physical or mental energy, parents, cleanliness, food except the Pizza Hut leftovers and a general Christmas spirit. We’re not down, we’re not Grinches, we’re just tired. Emily, Aunt Susie and I have been splitting up the household roles in these past weeks, heck, months even, as Kar and Ray bounce between Connecticut and New York for hospital visits. Emily and I are living like princesses in this empty house! I stumbled upon one of the update emails in my inbox the other day...

"I just wanted to drop you all a note and let you know that Ray is doing amazingly well!  He says he has not felt this good in over 4 years - no pain or tingling anywhere in his body... I didn't have the heart to tell him that drugs help with that :)  His color looks wonderful and he should be up and walking sometime this morning.  I am truly amazed at how well he looks and feels.

Thank you all so very much for your prayers and good wishes, they mean so very much."

What a Christmas. Soon after this note, we got the news that our stellar patient was well enough to return home a little early. Christmas Eve the royal carriage rolled in carrying those wonderful parents of mine. I couldn’t have been happier to see them and I hadn’t ever felt more blessed. That Christmas I couldn’t even tell you what we ate or what we received or even really what we did. What mattered the most was that we were all together and in good (enough) health. Oh how I love those four crazy cats I gotta call my family.

Snap out of it! Here we are back in Via Ghirardini, Bologna 2011. Get up, get dressed, get pretty - family will be here soon. For lunch we have: Carla's parents, brother, two sisters, brother-in-law, two nephews, brother-in-law's mother, Carla, Luca, Fede and that weird American girl that's living with them.... where can we all fit?! You can imagine it was quite the cozy table; I became quite personal with them.

This would be the first time I met over half of these people so the standing awkwardly around as everyone arrived was probably to be expected. That feeling faded quickly as we talked and did the family thing during the lunch courses (lasagna, fish kabobs, deserts galore, etc.).  It's amazing to see how the dynamics of a big family don't change among countries and languages. There are still those brothers making fun of each other, that "cool" aunt, that little cousin everyone loves, that in-her-nineties distant grandmother-like relative, hip hop happenin' grandpa, etc. After the four hour lunch (not exaggerating for the first time in my blog/life), we played games and opened presents while on Skype with Bianca, their daughter in Chicago with AFS. 

I'm not really a big present person. Geeze, I've got everything I need and more. And I'd rather give something personal and clever than something store-bought and wrapped by the exhausted workers in their ninth hour of the shift of hell. Nearly all my presents to the Pieri's were home-made because that's the type of family that would prefer it like this. I made a little note telling them how they've really got themselves figured out; they are a great family. They haven't just taught me a new language and culture, but a new/happier style of life and have quite sincerely changed my life. I won't ever forget them. You know you wrote a winner of a card when Mamma Carla sheds a few tears, right? Boooom, got'em! Oh me oh my, I'm a jerk :)

Now it's my turn to Skype! Holidays never feel weirder than when you are watching your family celebrate through a lens; you'll never feel so far away. I see routine and normalcy. I see everything that's familiar to me and even some new things (specifically the annoying dog that has replaced me). I see Emily making inappropriate jokes and Katie being a tool and Karen being a mamma bear and Ray wondering how he got stuck with so many women. The thing that keeps me from being too sad is that this is one Christmas, one year, one experience without them. 

My night ends like my day began, snuggles and sleepiness with the biggest baddest bro in the whole neighborhood. I don't feel bad falling asleep in the first fifteen minutes of our movie because I must get all amped up for our trip on the 27th & 28th, Lucca and Pisa, here we come! 

Buon Natale! Joyeux Noël! Frohe Weihnachten! メリークリスマス! God jul!¡Feliz Navidad! С Рождеством! สุขสันต์วันคริสมาสต์!  

Merry Christmas from all my foreign friends :)