A major adjustment when moving abroad is celebrating holidays differently. Some holidays Sicilians celebrate differently and some they don’t celebrate at all. The biggest adjustment is not to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with your family but since everyone over
here is in the same situation, there’s always somewhere to go and good people to celebrate with.For Halloween our friend Dawn had a big party on her rooftop. I went as a gangster of some sort and my bride was a baby girl. It was a typical Aci Trezza party with Americans and Sicilians mingling and playing games. There were many rockers this year with members of KISS and Guns and Roses showing up.
We ended up celebrating Thanksgivings many times this year. The newly-wed Muldoons started off the Thanksgivings with a huge meal and lots of friends.For the actual holiday we went over to our friend Lisa’s house for Turkey. Lisa is a pediatrician so there were lots of
people over from the hospital.We also went over to the Knoell’s house and Monika’s house.
Shannon and I decided to get a Christmas tree this year. In Sicily there doesn’t seem to be a tradition of going to cut down your own but we ended up finding a reasonably priced small tree at a hardware store in Ognina. We decorated the tree and it made our home a little more festive. Interestingly Christmas trees in Sicily come with the roots still attached in a pot of soil. This allows the tree to stay green longer and it is a tradition in Sicily for families to go replant their tree after the holiday season.
Shannon had a bunch of ladies over for her annual Christmas cookie making day. Shannon likes to make my Mom’s recipes and the other ladies brought some of their recipes over too. I tried to stay out of there and the cookies they produced were awesome.Shannon planned a progressive dinner for her department holiday party. For the progressive dinner we moved to different people’s houses each with a different course of dinner. The homes are all out in town North of the base so Shannon rented a large van and driver so everyone can get around easily. For appetizers we started off at the Mitchell’s house, the pasta course was at the Knoell’s house, main course over at the Rosenette's house (who live in the same building as us) and desserts at Kim’s house.
For Christmas Shannon and I went to Venice but that deserves it own blog entry so that will be the next installment.
For New Year’s Eve we went over the Knoell’s house along with the Mitchell’s and the Jolly’s. We ate well and stayed up late playing board games and guitar hero.
