Christmas Cookies

Living in Rome has provided me with many opportunities to do things for the first time. But a lot of them have nothing to do with the new country I'm in, and much more with the fact that I miss home and all things American. (Seriously, I may start listening to country when I get home. Ok, maybe I wont go that far.) But I definitely have discovered that I have way more American pride than I thought I did. Or I just developed it quickly while being away.

I had never made pancakes (remind me if I'm wrong) until I came to Rome. I never made Christmas sugar cookies either, at least by myself. Tonight, we had meatloaf for the first time ever too! Very exciting! And all, apparently, food related.

Anywhoo! Cookies!

See how sweet they are!
I could eat them right up!

 No, really, we'll get to the cookies. But look!

"Cheese!"
"I'm a ham like my mom!"

We were joined by Loretta and Paco for our Christmas cookie adventure and we all had a really good time. I cooked the cookies the night before, making my own Christmas tree cookie cutters out of cardstock and tin foil. It worked, and at first I was very excited. Then it started smushing all the edges as my cutting edge flattened out. Then I started thinking how if I had been in America, it would be so hard to find or store cookie cutters. Then I resorted to cutting out cookies with a glass cup and said, "Look! Its an ornament! That's Christmasy!" and tossed out the tree.

Our production line.
With a steady intake of sugar, children make great laborers. 

I had made a very special trip across the city to find a large enough chain grocery store for the food coloring. Of course, all my friends back home were making their own natural dyes. As much as that would have been fun, it would have added about a million more steps to this process. Including buying a food processor. Finding out where in the world I could buy things like beets and tumeric, etc. We'll revisit that when I'm back in the States. The dyes I had made some very nice jewel tones. And I even had found some very overpriced sprinkles! Of course, I don't even know the last time I bought sprinkles in the States. Maybe it was normal.

Teal ornaments are so bad, eh?

 It was tricky at first trying to make the cookie decorating accessible to the little ones. Having frosting that was almost completely liquid at first didn't help any. (Note the Christmas tree with the bite out of it, second over from the right. It wasn't completely dipped, as it may appear. The frosting was just that runny) Once we had our good consistency, bags for squeezing the frosting out, and sprinkles in trays to be spooned out, we started making some progress. A good number of these below where done by Emma, all by herself. (See the  bottom left corner. That shows a lot of her work)

Some cookie masterpieces

 Of course, not all children could participate. Some had to be strapped down and watch the happening while being promised a cookie of their own. Said children waited very patiently. These were heavily sugared cookies after all.

"I can wait all day"

 And yes, she was greatly rewarded for her patience.

I ended up making at least 3 or 4 different kinds cookies in the course of a few weeks, helping to make the spirit bright. Another first. Being away from home forced me into taking initiative on all Christmas spirit in the home. And the cookies helped that effort quite a bit.  And yes, it was technically advent. But I don't care! They were all delicious! Mmmmmmmmmm, coooookies.

Griesbach Advent Wreath

Here's what happens if you eat too many cookies. 

Red Dye 40 reaction

Or a sprinkle overload?

Nothing says Christmas like crashing on the couch! (Just pretend, ok?)

**Stay tuned for part 3 of our Christmas adventures! Krakow, here we come!**

Piazza Navona Christmas Market

Now that we're approaching St. Valentine's Day, I want to talk about Christmas and our awesome trip to Krakow, Poland!  (Can I just say how much I love working on Windows! Bad Ubuntu!) I've gotten out of the house and am stationed in Leon's office in the late hours of the evening so that this blog will get off its butt and continue.

So where did we leave off?....

Christmas! This wont be as hard to imagine for those of you who are still in a wintry wonderland. (admittedly I'm still a little bit jealous. But then I go for a walk in the 60 degree weather today and forget about it)

Although there was never any snow here in Rome, Christmas lights helped to make the streets very festive. Restaurants, like Luigi's here, actually still have their garland up today. Although I think they've finally taken down the lights.

One of our main destinations while still in Rome was  Piazza Navona with its crazy Christmas Fair. We were surprised that it was more like a carnival fair then what I would think of as a Christmas Fair, but it was still fun.

Balloons and Crowds at Piazza Navona Christmas Fair

 It was packed with rows upon rows of craft/goods/food stands that looked like box cars with a canopy. You could find beautiful ornaments like these:

Can't imagine the cost of decking out our entire 4 foot tree with these....
but it would be pretty!

 Fantastic wreaths...

People, presents, and Piazza Navona

 And of course, it wouldn't be Christmas without a Merry-Go-Round! Wait, not that's the county fair again..



One of my favorites of course were all the junk food stands. The massive doughnuts the size of your face were very tempting, but I settled eventually on a more reasonably sized frosted chocolate one. (But it wasn't very good. Too dry. Next time, go big or go home!)

Just trying to capture the delightfulness of my children.
Not the doughnuts. I swear.

 Many, many of the stands were of various cresh accessories, figurines, and village and/or cave houses. Apparently I hear that many Italians have several (3 or 4) nativity scenes throughout their houses. But that ain't the American way, so sorry none of you American friends got any of these beauts. If you'd like to enlist in the multiple cresh households, let me know and I'll make a note for next Christmas.

Nativity Scenes

I found this MASSIVE, several-feet-high house at one stand. I'm just guessing, but I don't think that's the "lowly manger" in which Jesus was born. It's still really cool nonetheless. 

Maybe its just a well equipped  cave?

Carnival Games included shooting things, rolling things, and ringing things, like these floating swans. All for the the classic stuffed animals that no Italian apartment has room to house.

Lady in the way!

We definitely got a good mix of Christmasy, carnival, and Halloween sentiments when mulling through the crowd. The latter effect being caused by these traditional Christmas Witches, known as the Bufana. Complete with ugly face, broom stick, plaid garments, and all-around un-Christmasy feel to it....at least by my standards. I really tried to warm up to her, but she seemed to fit in better two months prior.

The Christmas Bufana

It carries some story about the Magi coming to her house looking for directions to the Christ child. But she was too cranky and mean to help them out. Then she repents and goes looking for the child herself, but never finds him. She feels so guilty (good Catholic witch) that she gives out presents and candy to children. On Epiphany? Look it up for more accurate details. Don't let these fantastic story telling skills bewilder you away from the fact that it's actually February and my short term memory ran out a month ago.

 Aaaaaaand.....more stands! This one oddly featured a lot of Simpson memorabilia. Puppets?

Again, more carnival than Christmas, but what the hey!
It's all fun!

Here's a small side note, gently reminding all you Mainers out there that eating outdoors was still possible in the middle of December.

So warm and cozy...hehehe

One of the stands I should have gotten a picture of, but was too busy admiring their goods, was the fountain pen stands. They had ones with dragons going up the stem, flowers, all ending in fantastic colored plumes. I really really wanted to get one for Leon, but it was above our budget for each other. Now, two months later, we got some beginner, flat nibbed fountain pens and Leon is steadily on his way to becoming a master pretty writer. I think I shall give him that as a title. He'll like it. :)

One the way home we saw another example of good old-fashioned Christmasy spirit. An evergreen headress! Decked out with lights, bells, and bows!!

Taking pictures of strangers covertly doesn't always guarantee a smiling face.

Sing it with me! "City Street lights, even head lights..." (get it!) Ok, those are both head and tail lights there. :)

Buon Natale! Auguri!

(Stay tuned for actual Christmas week footage, as we travel to Krakow, Poland in some of the next few blog posts!)