Buon Natale a tutti!

Buon Natale! (Merry Christmas!) This year was our first Christmas abroad, and it was definitely a different experience to be without immediate family, but there were positives and negatives to that aspect. While we missed our family, being without them gave us the opportunity to figure out what we wanted to do as a family and the traditions we would like to start. We also got to invite other Airmen over who would have nowhere else to go otherwise.

I finished our stockings Christmas Eve! Whew!

Our tree this year, as you can see to the right, is really a garland that we taped to the wall. And yes, I then strung lights through it and hung ornaments onto it. It made it all the way until dessert time on Christmas before the tape decided to fling itself off the wall. One ornament was sacrificed in the process.

I looked into traditional holiday desserts, and found that mince pies, marzipan, and figgy puddings, all seemed to have odd ingredients that might be difficult to find, and were either too complicated or time consuming for my energy levels. Then I found that “Yule Logs” are also considered a traditional dessert, so we decided to give that one a try. It was a success! I was rather concerned as I was making it that it would resemble a turd instead of a log, but one of our friend's was able to guess what it was, so I think that qualifies it as a success. And hubby said it was delicious. Voila! We have now voted in our candidate for yearly traditional dessert. My hubby made a fantastic meal of glazed ham, sautéed green beans, creamy mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, and mango chutney brussel sprouts (who won’t be reprising their Christmas appearance as a vegetable side…) and warm Italian bread rolls. For me, it was another dinner night like any other, and all I ate were the green beans. But I was pleased to watch everyone else enjoy the good food.

Our Yule Log! It was a large flour-less chocolate cake (baked in a cookie sheet) which I rolled with a fluffy chocolate cream filling. I then frosted the outside. All from scratch, and hubby said it was 'delicious' multiple times. Yay!

"Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things..."

 For those of you who ‘Pinterest’, (yes, that is a verb, just like ‘google’), you know that wrapping presents in brown paper is a current trend. I decided to join that bandwagon this year (mostly because I didn’t want to spend the money on rolls of wrapping paper), and my hubby and I quite like how it turned out. Hubby and I wrapped our gifts to each other with reused brown paper grocery bags and twine. I would decorate a couple of them with some fake foliage or pine-cone of some sort and it looked great. The presents looked sweet and simple, clean and neat, instead of the overwhelming shiny color onslaught, it was inexpensive and recycled, and made far less mess than the other shredded Christmas papers. This might become a wrapping tradition of ours.

Someone on base picked us as their Secret Santa recipient. What a kindness! Whomever they were, they are very generous and gave Adam a load of gifts, most of which were hand made wooden Italian toys. What a lucky kid! And due to overseas shipping difficulties, not all of our gifts from stateside family made it here on time, so our Christmas has been extended!

Even our Christmas cold seems to have an upside, as it has forced us to stay inside and snuggle. We had a very blessed Christmas and I am so thankful for everything in it. I hope you, dear reader, also had a lovely Christmas. Buon Natale a tutti!

P.S. Below are some pictures of our Little One exploring Christmas decor. Rediscovering Christmas with little ones really helps rekindle the magic and wonder side of Christmas! So fun! And bonus, I got to practice my night photography skills ^_^