Merry Christmas Eve! Our house is busy wrapping the final presents, watching football, and playing in the snow that fell overnight. My Italian sister, Gaia – who joined our family this year through the AFS program – is in the kitchen making tiramisu for Christmas dinner. Since this is Gaia’s first Christmas away from home, I decided to find out her thoughts on the holiday season in the U.S. and how it’s different from where she lives in Sanluri, Sardinia.
Today is Christmas Eve. If you were at home in Italy right now, what would your day look like?
I would get up, and I would have breakfast, and all the stuff like a normal day. I think there’s nothing special on Christmas Eve, except for the dinner because we used to eat all together. This is going to be just my family, and my mom’s sister and her husband and her daughter, and because my grandma doesn’t want to go because it gets late and she lives in another town, and same thing for my grandpa. So it’s just us six, and we eat – not that much, but we eat. And my cousin always wants to open a gift, even though it’s the 24th and we open gifts on the 25th morning, but she always can open one, so we open one gift, and then we wait for the day after.
What about Christmas Day?
So Christmas Day is way more exciting, cause I used to get up kinda early. I mean, I never get up at 8 o’clock, but on Christmas Day yeah. I go downstairs, I kinda stress my parents cause I want to open all my presents, even though I don’t have a lot of presents like here. When I was younger, it was bigger and stuff. So I open my presents, and they open my presents, and then we used to make lunch. So on Christmas Day we used to have a big, big, big, big, big, big, and long lunch with all my family. This year it’s in my house, I’m not there, though. Last year I think it was in my aunt’s house. After the lunch, all the kids want to open the gifts and stuff, so everyone opens the gifts by my grandma, and I open the gifts from my aunt and uncle, the others as well. After that, it depends. Or in the evening, I go out with my friends and we hang out for that time, or we used to stay in the house and watch movies, we just hang out together.
What does your family eat for Christmas dinner?
The main meal for Christmas in my family is the lunch on the 25th. Usually my grandma makes a lot of appetizers and after the appetizer you feel like you’re full, but that’s just the appetizer. After that we eat pasta, and that’s a different kind every year. And for the meat, we used to eat a small pig, roasted, that my grandpa used to cook when he was alive, but now that he’s not here anymore my dad used to do it, or my grandma And sometimes we have fish after the meat. And after that we have vegetables. At the end, we have the desserts, and we have a lot of things. We have some traditional cookies, if you wanna call them that, from Sardinian tradition that my grandma used to make, or we eat pannettone and pandoro that are from the Italian tradition, I mean everyone in Italy eats them. And people drink wine, I’ll drink wine, you know. After the lunch, we drink coffee, and that’s it.
How is Christmas different in Italy from what you’ve experienced here?
Here in America, Christmas is a big deal. Christmas is a big deal in Italy, as well, but not that big. I mean, America is big. America is famous for doing stuff in a big way. And I cannot believe it now, that I’m experiencing it, but I didn’t expect it. And you know, here in America, everything is bigger than you expect. All the lights, that I’d never seen actually, that was my first time. One thing that we do in a bigger way, is eating and stuff. We used to eat all together, sit at the table with good plates, and you know, it’s a different day. Here, I don’t know – for what I saw, it’s not like that. It’s just like the meal, okay, it’s a meal and then you guys have other things.
What has been your favorite thing about the holiday season in America?
My favorite thing about the holiday season in America is that, soon after Thanksgiving you can – so, you go in the car and you can turn on the radio and there is a Christmas station, and I was like, “What the hell, we don’t have Christmas stations in Italy,” but whatever, it’s pretty cool. So you’re gonna listen to the same songs in loop for one month, and you get kinda sick of it, but you never get sick of it, like totally. And lights everywhere. And not small lights, but big lights. America’s big, so everything’s big. I like this thing that everything is bigger, and I don’t know, you guys do a lot of presents. We don’t do that, like that much. And yeah, my favorite thing about Christmas in America is that it is new.
How is the weather different here than in Sardinia?
Well, the weather is way different. So, Sardinia is an island and there’s the sea everywhere, so we don’t have very cold weather. I remember that one year, I went out with a t-shirt and I was like, “What? It’s Christmas and I’m with a t-shirt.” Here, I mean last night, it snowed and so me and my sister Carrie, since we knew it was supposed to snow, we did sort of a sleepover and we waited for the snow. At 3 o’clock we went outside and it was snowing, and I was almost about to cry. I was jumping in the middle of the road. I was freezing my butt off, but I was like “I wanna stay here forever, even though it’s cold I don’t care. It’s my dream.” And it’s my first White Christmas, and I think it’s going to be the only one. But I’m pretty happy, and I dreamed about it and I had it. And I think my dream is true now.
What are you looking forward to most about tomorrow?
I’m looking forward, to be honest, for presents. And I’m looking forward to eat my food, cause I wanna see how my American family is gonna like my food – or not, I don’t know. It’s a way to experience also Italian traditions for them, as well. So it’s cool it’s a mixture of traditions and cultures, that’s what I always wanted since I came here. So yeah, I’m pretty excited about tomorrow, even though I’m kinda homesick you know, cause Christmas, but it’s fine. I feel good.
We’re so happy to have Gaia in our family to share traditions with this year! What are your favorite Christmas traditions?
-Cathy
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