Tree Lighting in Ferrara

At the beginning of December we were excited to go down to the cathedral and watch the lighting of the big Christmas tree in the Piazza.  We had heard last year there was a big light show on the side of a nearby building so we were expecting something similar.  We ran into a few friends in the crowd and staked out a spot in front of the tree and waited for the show to start.

What a show!  They had a synchronized light/fire/water show right in front of us that lasted almost 20 minutes.

The music was so loud (you can see we were right near a speaker) and you could feel the heat from the fire every time it went off.  Michael, who has about a 13 second attention span for the things he's most interested in, was captivated the whole time.  As cool as the show was, it was even more fun for me to watch him and his reactions to the colors and water and fire. He kind of wrinkled his nose every time the fire went off. It was super cute.

Towards the end of the show, the tree was lit! And it continued awhile longer (most of the music was instrumental, but at one point they started playing "We are the Champions" by Queen which was funny).

We had one of our friends take a picture of us near the Christmas tree at the end. It was hard to get a good picture in the dark and with all the other people trying to do the same thing.

After the show, we wanted to go out for dinner but still had a few minutes to kill before the restaurant opened.  We let Michael ride on the carousel a few more times, which he thoroughly enjoyed!

It was a really fun evening. I can't wait to see what they do next year!

International Christmas Party

Every year in December, there is a big Christmas party for all the NATO countries represented at the base here in Italy.  They have a Santa for the kids (parents buy presents for their children, then Santa hands them out), and the main attraction is dinner where each country sets up a table of typical foods from their country and everyone walks around to try them all.

We got there a little early to see if the Americans needed help setting up (and I had made three batches of cookies for our table I needed to deliver).  They got everything put out and ready to go before all the festivities started.

For reasons I'm still unclear about, our group decided to make fajitas for our table.  I had imagined something along the lines of turkey, hamburgers, barbecue... Something more American. But they decided on fajitas so we had chicken/peppers, tortillas, guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream, beans, rice, and margaritas. With an assortment of cookies for dessert.  It was very good!

Once everything got set up, we went to another room for a speech by the commander and for Santa handing out presents to the kids.  They had two Santas and it still took forever. Michael was getting hungry and impatient and was one of the last kids to get his present. By the time his turn came around he was NOT happy about getting put in a stranger's lap.  Especially since that stranger had a beard. He's suspicious of facial hair.  This was  the result:

Poor kid screamed!  It took him a while to recover.  He didn't really care about his present and any glimpse of Santa sent him back into hysterics.

Eventually we took him outside away from all the people and let him open his present in peace (and without that weird Santa guy within eyesight) and he calmed down enough to show some interest in his new drum and instrument set.

After all the gift unwrapping, it was finally time to eat.  We had a good time walking around and trying all of the different types of food. Michael did a great job trying new things--he was so hungry I don't think he even spit anything out! We tried pickled herring, pate, different kinds of meats and cheeses, olives, kebabs, Turkish delight, soups, potato pancakes, pastas, cakes, and cookies.

Finally, after some food in his stomach, Michael was feeling better and started acting like his normal, sweet self again.

While everyone was finishing up eating, cleaning, and talking, they had a magician come and perform for the kids. Michael wasn't very interested so he and I went outside to he could run around with the big kids.  We came back in every few minutes to warm up and check on daddy, and one of the times we saw this:

Robbie got picked to be the magician's lovely assistant. After the magic show it was getting late and Michael was pretty burned out on all the excitement so we headed home to call it a night. It was a good time--maybe next year he'll enjoy it a little more and won't be too traumatized by his interaction with Santa!