When I was a kid, Christmas was a great moment for me to enjoy some activities I was involved into with the Church I was attending for catholic education and so on. We had some small parties going on, and then we went house by house singing Christmas songs.
Sometimes we were even altogether invited in the home of the people, that offered us tea, hot chocolate and biscuits to feed us as most of the time we were in the cold winter singing.
Beside all of that, Christmas has usually been a moment to gather with my aunts, uncles and cousins from my mom’s side for Christmas lunch. As we are 6 cousins and my mom has 5 brothers/sisters, in total we were usually 20 people celebrating Christmas’ lunch together where my granma, a great cooker, cooked for all of us the best traditional dishes for Christmas: homemade ravioli (tortellini), stuffed meat with pearà, a typical sauce from Verona and a lot of appetizers. I remember that I was already almost full after appetizers as a kid, I was not really eating a lot.
Source: Author. Here a part of all the sweets prepared from Mary’s mother
Christmas in general, anyway, meant also some forms of solitude for me as until 15-16years old I have been much shy and during holidays I was in general alone with no much people to hang out with or play with. So, I was spending a lot of time with my parents at home, or playing games (especially building games like Lego Technic or Mecchano), doing puzzles and so on.
That’s why, it’s since some years that I started enjoying Christmas again in some forms, thanks to Mary’s family that is really heart-warming and kind of gently educated me in enjoying again the Christmas spirit.
Here below is the Christmas tree with all the gifts that we make to each other and that is something more I learnt to enjoy and to provide as well!
So, I have to say that I really like the evolution from when I was a kid to now of how I am living the Christmas period and love to vibrate with the joy from this period.