Christmas celebrated with an Italian family in Rome!

Hello my dear friends!

As I wrote earlier I am in Italy again (more precisely in Rome) and I would very much like to tell you about my 2-days stay in Verona and 2-days stay in Florence. It’s worth it and besides, I have some photos of different architectures, views of cities, shops decoration and so on. But I should postpone everything and in the meantime I would like to tell you about my first Christmas celebrated in Europe, in an Italian family.

My family (where I am currently living) has started Christmas preparation the day before the event (gifts they bought much earlier, of course), but began to prepare the food one day before. I am talking about lasagna of two types (meat one and a vegetarian option) as well as something like a vegetable pizza-pie. And on the 24^th of December we took all the gifts and left the house. The trip was very long, 3 meters long as we actually went into the next-door apartment where the sister of my hostmother lived. While being here, in this family, I clearly realized how convenient it is when relatives live in the neighborhood. Although, perhaps there are also disadvantages in such a situation.

I really liked the apartment: it was big, spacious, decorated in Christmas European style. The one thing I didn’t really enjoy. I am talking about the floor which was marble or tile (I am not sure as I am not good at this kind of thing), but it was very cold and therefore everyone was wearing street shoes inside the flat. Specially for this evening I changed my tradition and mentality and also wore my boots because health is really important for me.

I was very worried how I would feel in a large Italian family where I knew less than a half of guests and where I was the only person outside the family and, most importantly, the only foreigner there. But the evening was magical! First of all, everyone was really friendly, open and welcoming. All the guests were trying to talk to me, to help me with my Italian, to make me feel a part of the family. It was very nice of them. And very often I heard “Che carina questa ragazza russa”, which meant “How nice this Russian girl is” which was also very kind of them. Of course, majority of people asked me a question about Siberia, about my city (Omsk) and, most importantly about the weather, thinking that Russia is the coldest place on Earth.

(c) the picture was taken from the internet, luxfon site.

The dinner started with some snacks as one of the family members brought different types of canapés with mozzarella, smoked sausage, soft cheese with spices, jam, bread, olives, sausage…As I was told Italians eat only fish on Christmas according to their tradition, there is no meat on the table. Thus these canapés was kind of a deviation from the tradition, for those who wanted meat. And I must say that almost everyone chose to participate this little meat-festival until they (the canapés) ended. That’s what I also did. We were also offered different sandwiches with salmon and something else (but I only ate the salmon one). And we drank a bit of alcohol though I am not sure about the name of it.

Then all exchanged their Christmas gifts which were under the tree. They actively tore beautiful packages with bows and ribbons. And subsequently followed to the table being in this happy mood of received presents.

At first we were offered lasagna (meat and vegetarian), pasta Bolognese and a pie. Surprisingly the main drink was water there. It seemed for me that the food was enough, but it was just a start. Then we were served with meatloaf, salmon, vegetable salad, stewed zucchini, something baked with the cheese and even a plate of Russian salad! Yes, it is actually called insalata russa! I decided that it was prepared specifically for me, but as it turned out, the salad was pretty popular in the country (maybe they eat it every Christmas, I am not sure). In any case, it was very nice, although it’s still a bit different from our traditional one and therefore tasted a bit strange for me.

There were few generations and the table was divided into few parts (some people talked in pairs, some were shouting, sitting in different corners of the table, while others talked sitting in threes), therefore sometimes it was hard to understand whom to listen, whom to answer, what to focus on.

At the end of this special Christmas dinner they brought a dessert. Traditional Christmas dessert is Panettone (a light Italian sweet bread loaf with candied fruit baked for Christmas).

(Didn’t find a chance to take a photo while being there so took it from the internet in order to show you how it looks like).

Pandoro was also there (it was much harder to find information about this cake, as I misspelled it and the internet immediately showed results for the jewelry products of Pandora). In fact I really liked both desserts, but as I was told Pandoro was a typical cake of Verona (and with a large amount of butter used in it), and Panettone was a Milanese cake.

We also tasted marzipan fruits (or as they called “Frutta martorana”). As I was the only foreigner there the big family decided to explain me what it was, where it came from and I was even given the first piece to try it. Later I told them that I spent all my summer in Sicily, I tried those famous Sicilian sweets and besides, I heard the story (legend) about the fruits no less than 10 times from our guide in the hotel. They took their origin at the Monastero della Martorana (which is in Palermo) when nuns decorated empty fruit trees with marzipan fruit to impress an archbishop visiting at Easter.

(this photo was also taken from the internet)

It seemed to me very surprising that the dessert was served without tea or coffee, just water. Although I love water and was glad about it, but remembering our Russian traditions I felt there was missing something and that the host just forgot to offer a cup of tea.

And despite the beautiful table in red colour-theme with the pictures of traditional Christmas flowers (poinsettia), we ate and drank from the plastic plates and glasses that was also quite unexpected, though it was very logical considering the number of guests and the age of the hosts (it was a lovely Italian couple of 70 years old both that hosted us).

Around 11pm everyone stopped eating and after 5-10 minutes of cleaning and tiding up the table they started to prepare for some cart-games. As about cleaning the table: it was my first time when I saw a small vacuum cleaner to clean tablecloths, it collected the crumbs from the table very conveniently. I was impressed! Everyday it happens to me – I am discovering a new technique. It’s funny that I have traveled a lot but sometimes it feels like I just came from a village.

We went home after 11pm. As I already said the way was too long: more than 3 meters if being exact! What’s more we needed to open the door with the key! It was such an incredible effort we all made))). My Italian family told me that playing cards was also a kind of Christmas celebration and they played literally once a year, on this day (or rather a night). So I would really wanted to see it happening but, alas, I was exhausted by the time and thus I left the company of gamblers and chose sleep.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, my dear friends! See you soon 🙂