Christmas Festivities!

I've finally got some pictures up from Christmas! While it's so hard to be away from our family during the holidays, we are so lucky to have such great friends here in Italy to spend the holidays with. Parker had a wonderful first Christmas and is oficially spoiled rotten! He got the hang of pulling the wrapping paper off gifts and loves to play with all his new toys and books :) Karl and I got him tons of stuff, but I really think that his favorite is the ball popper...he actually just likes to watch mommy and daddy run after the balls when the pop out all over the place! I think my favorite gift was the Wii from Karl- I'm super sore today after playing way too much tennis, boxing, and Dance Dance Revolution yesterday. Karl loved all the soccer stuff I got him and also a signed print of the marina here in Pozzuoli, Italy!

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Christmas Eve started all of the festivities. When Karl got home from a half day of work, we did a mini-Christmas celebration with our maid, Rosa, complete with Limoncello and gifts for Parker. Later that day, Karl, Parker, and I headed to a local Pasticceria (Pastry shop/coffee bar) to get dolce for Christmas Eve dinner at our landlord's house. We then headed home and made dozens of cookies with Parker...he even helped shape the sugar cookies and put sprinkles on them...such a little chef :) At nine at night, we headed over to Gennaro and Rosa's (our landlord and his wife) for Christmas Eve dinner...that's right...9 pm...Italians eat late! We had tons of food with the main meal being Spaghetti alla Vongole (spaghetti and clams) since they mainly eat fish that night. There was also a TON of wine that was made in our vineyard earlier in the year! We finally got home around midnight and headed to bed to wait for Santa...

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The plate of dolce we got for Christmas Eve dessert (and yes, it was as good as it looks).

All our loot (minus the boxes from my family that haven't arrived yet)...Christmas is going to last for weeks! Parker putting the last ornament on the advent calendar (my oldest sister actually made this for us last year!).

Ready for Parker's first Christmas!

Gennaro with Parker at Christmas Eve dinner.

Parker decorating the cookies!

Me and little chef :)

Parker on Christmas morning with his new soccer ball...Karl is trying to influence him I think...

Christmas was such a fun day! After opening (some) presents...it took two days to open all of them...I baked an amazing apple pie (I will toot my own horn on that one) and Amanda's famous MacNCheese and we headed next door to Lisa's for a great Christmas dinner with tons of friends!

It really couldn't have a been better couple of days and thank you to everyone who helped make it so very special!

Opening more gifts.

Parker in his Christmas bag :)

Opening the ball popper while my parents were watching on Skype from the laptop in front of us.

I think I could have just given Parker wrapping paper for Christmas and he would have been happy!

After a VERY long Christmas day :)