“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.”
– my main man…Ralph Waldo Emerson
This year I acted like a grown up (kind of). I didn’t pass Christmas at home or with my biological family. I am planning on moving forward with my adult life, but negating that aspect for a long time. Though I seriously missed my family and our traditions like THE Lucas Family Caroling Party, I was lucky enough to pass the time with my Italian family and with Julia who came to visit Italy!
How to describe what we ate? Effective words escape me.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of the Christmas Eve dinner, so I will need to try and illustrate with the proper justification the deliciousness of the food we ate requires. The Catholic religion did not allow for us to eat meat, but never fear, Zia Giovanna had it all figured out. We ate two types of tortellone, one with spinach the other filled with pumpkin. Then, the fish began. I had never had octopus before, so I have no basis to have compared what we ate with, but everyone said it was the best octopus that they had ever eaten: Aunt Giovanna makes it in a way no one else in the world does. It was light and moist, like a cloud. An octopus cloud. Then, mussels, jumbo shrimp, potatoes, and more things that due to the food coma we experienced after has been wiped from my memory. We finished with sweet tortellone filled with cream and marmalade. Ahhhhhhh. Then off to two and a half hour mass ending at one AM. I’m not sure how it happened.
Christmas day just happened to be absolutely gorgeous outside. Thanks accelerated climate change! As opposed to the snow we had experienced two years ago on Christmas day in Italy, the sun made me feel like I was having a normal SLO-Christmas.
Christmas lunch was at the grandparents, we ate up all the meat that we had been missing from our meal the night before. 
Then the next day we got to go skiing!
…on top of the world.
…and eat more things!
Mountain food needs to have its own category. There is nothing that really describes the feeling of coming in from the freezing snow covered misty mountains and stepping into a refuge that is warm with the smell of melted cheese and a general defrosting.
Julia got to go skiing for the first time.
Clearly enjoyed it. (not staged)
The next day Julia and I left to go to Florence and Rome and then met back up with my friends who have a house in Castegneto di Carducci
Which just so happened to be on the Mediterranean sea. First open body of water I had seen in four months! And even at the end of December, the water was way warmer than at Avila. Bye 2011!
vaibeccavai 