Lights! Decorations! Snow?

In the center of the city the main streets are lit up with all these beautiful lights.

Inside the churches they display the nativity scene. Each church has their own scene, some are very elaborate and others can be more simple. Generally for Christmas, the Church will put a sign out for people to come by just to see their display of the nativity and surrounding scenery for the ones that are more artisticly well done.

Look to the left of the photo near the top of the door...that is how they power the lights!

Lucky for them, all the buildings are stone ;)

Another nativity scene.

Nope, it's fake.. made from soap, but was fun to take photos in it. The noise from the machine "blowing" the soap snow make Sisi cry. Go figure.
See my hair. Soapy.

My Christmas Gift

Aprilia Scarabeo 150

Visitors and Holidays

VISITORS

At the beginning of December we had Gimmy's family from the South of Italy visit us. They enjoyed doing the rounds of the famous sites and also they had fun playing with Sisi.

Piazzale Michelangelo with Nonna Sara

Poor, sick Gimmy with nephew Mario
Mario on the Carousel in Piazza Repubblica


THANKSGIVING


We went to my friend Allison's house for Thanksgiving. We celebrated the weekend before since it was not a holiday in Italy, obviously. We also had the arrival of my cousin Leslie and her friend Iesha from Paris. They are both Americans and enjoyed being able to celebrate the holiday, normally spent with family at home, with us and our friends in Italy. Allison had invited her "American friends" to celebrate the holiday and it was very nice!
By the way, her sweet potato recipe was SO good! ;)

My friend Allison.

Allison and Sisi

Out and About

Leslie and Iesha,
In front on the Ponte Vecchio At one of the Santa Croce markets.

Leslie: So, what happened here was I went to take the photo of her and her dress flies up without her knowing! I said, "Leslie your dress!" then she yells, "Oh my god!" and pushes her dress back to place. There were some girls behind me that laughed and said "Op, that's gonna be on the internet in an hour..haha!" This photo is taken just a second too late, lucky for Les!

Another Thanksgiving!
We did another Thanksgiving on the day (in America) of Thanksgiving. But this time we invited Italians to our house to share our "American Holiday".

Sisi resting up for all the playing

Oh, Sisi!

Stuffed turkey breast...

Brussle sprouts, candied carrots, mashed potatoes...and some other things...

thanks Martha Stewart

The girls: me, Sisi, Giorgia, Leslie, and Rosita

The dinner,
yep, that's Kai Portman in the blue shirt

Simone and Sisi

My cousin Leslie

Leslie's Birthday Party

Our friends Rosita and Ottavio made a nice birthday party at there home for Leslie.

Rosita made all the food, it was so so good!

The party

The dancers

Fiesole

We made it to Fiesole as the sun was going down. We took a walk to see the Roman and Etruscan ruins and of course the great view of Florence from the top of the hill.

Gimmy

Castello Di Gabbiano
Our favorite place.

Sisi and me with the dog

Having lunch

The restaurant
Olive oil

Tuscany

Getting ready for Christmas!

Decorating..

and eating Christmas cookies. Time to get ready for the holidays!

Halloween Day

Sadly, Italy does not really celebrate Halloween. There is no dressing up the kids (or yourself), getting your little (or big) sack to take with you as you go around to the neighbors and friends homes to show off your scary, cool or cute costume for candy. So, since Sisi is still pretty small and doesnt know about Halloween we didnt even do a costume :( I know its a silly and small thing but its one of those things that you miss when you can't participate.

But, we did have a fun time at the park!