We hope you're squeezing every bit of joy out of the festivities. We are in a very happy mood lately! Sure, we would have preferred to be in Italy for the holidays, enjoying our parents and all our friends, but we are trying to have a lovely time here too. We'll have a quiet New Year's Eve at home. We’ll celebrate snuggling on the sofa with DVDs and hot cocoa and having a midnight "virtual party" on Skype with our family and friends back in Italy. How will you be ringing in the New Year?

We love traditions, old and new. We love the sound of Christmas, but most of all, we love the smell of it. There is nothing more satisfying and enjoyable than Christmas in a cup! We just had a cup of Rooibos Chai.

It is aromatized with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, star anise and black pepper. It's delicious and relaxing. Perfect with a slice of Pandolce Genovese.

Also for the end of the year and New Year's Day there are many traditions. In Italy, the last day of the year is la Festa di San Silvestro (the feast of St. Sylvester), a fourth-century pope. Traditionally families and friends share a huge dinner called il cenone (literally, the big supper). Lenticchie (lentils), symbols of prosperity because they resemble coins, are almost always on the menu, often served with pork, another symbol of the richness of life. We like to eat lentils with cotechino (a big pork sausage that we cut in slices like coins) or zampone (pig's trotter). In Piemonte (Kia's region), rice symbolizes money, so a cenone includes risotto. Uvette (raisins), another symbol for coins, appear in desserts throughout the peninsula.

In a relatively recent tradition, couples give each gifts of red underwear, a color that wards off the malocchio (evil eye) and a symbol of love, prosperity, and fertility.

Another important tradition is represented by i botti di capodanno (New Year's firecrackers and fireworks). This is something we're going to miss. Here in Scotland they have fireworks to celebrate Bonfire Day and also the switching on of the Christmas lights, but surprisingly not for New Year's Day (except for some areas). We say "surprisingly" because the end of the year is a big celebration here.

Hogmanay is the Scots word for the last day of the year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is, however, normally only the start of a celebration which lasts through the night until the morning of New Year's Day.

We would like to thank you for all your visits and comments during the year 2009 and for the warm friendships many of you have extended to us. Have a wonderful night dear friends, we are looking forward to travelling through 2010 with you! Happy Hogmanay and all the best for 2010! We hope the New Year brings happiness to you all! May it be your best yet.

For over a week the temperatures have been below zero, so that the snow we have had has not melted, but just frozen. This gives a beautiful scene for those who can stay at home and look from the window, but if you have to go out you have to be careful while walking on the slippery layer of ice.

Today it was slippery not only outside, but also within our building, even though for a different reason. If you accidentally drop a bottle of oil in the elevator of your building and oil pours all over, what would you do? Would you try to clean as best as you could or just go away like nothing happened? Apparently, one of our neighbors thought that the second option was the best thing to do. Kia and I really do not understand the behavior of our neighbors. The whole condo is part of their home, but they don’t seem to care if it gets dirty.

Anyway, I took the elevator to go downstairs and check our mailbox. It was empty. Later on the postman rang our door to deliver a box containing the DVDs we had ordered for Christmas: the first three seasons of the Muppet Show.

Yesterday I rented two DVDs at Blockbuster. We watched Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (with Jennifer Garner and Matthew McConaughey) right away. It was a funny romantic comedy and we really enjoyed it. The second one was Inglorious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino, and we have watched it this afternoon. I expected it to be a different kind of movie and I was really disappointed. Kia thinks it was horrible and, even if it’s not a horror/splatter movie, she was sick to her stomach!

Today, a gelid wind has been blowing unceasingly and the cold air started to get into our apartment in drafts coming from any direction. The hot vegetable soup we had for dinner helped to keep us warm.

It’s time to go to bed now. Tomorrow is the last day of 2009. Might it be a marvelous day for all of you.

Lighting one candle
with another candle;
an evening of Winter.

.:: Yosa Buson ::.

Happy Monday! It's the last one of 2009, hopefully it's a good one for everyone.

Just a quickie after the long entry of the 26th. It’s just me or Christmas was over too quickly? I usually don’t get the Christmas blues ‘cos I am always quite excited about starting a new year. I am looking forward to beginning new things. Even though Christmas is over, there is no need to put away the Christmas spirit, right? As Ebenezer Scrooge says at the end of A Christmas Carol: “I will keep the spirit of Christmas in my heart all year long”. I will try to do the same and to enjoy my life more and be thankful for all of my blessings.

Hope you continue to enjoy the holidays. Wrap up warm and snuggly. Take care if you have to go out on the icy snow. It’s -6°C/21°F and foggy here today. Nothing compared to the -28°C/-18°F one of you is experiencing these days, brrrrr! Gingerbread-hugs your way!

We hope that all of you who are celebrating Christmas had a nice and joyful time. We got more snow today, after the few flurries on Sunday and the big snow fall on Tuesday. The snow came down in waves during the whole morning, then it stopped.

We had a very quiet Christmas at home, just the two of us. We hoped to go back to Italy and spend the holidays with our families and friends, but when Zeno finally got the confirmation of his holidays it was too late to find a flight. Since he had to work till the 24th, we would have had to travel on Christmas Day. And it would have cost too much! The prices of the flights during the holidays can give headaches.

Like most families in Italy, we start celebrating Christmas Eve (la vigilia di Natale) with a traditional dinner. We decided to have a typical Scottish Christmas supper: turkey with all the trimmings.

We had planned to go to the midnight mass (la messa di mezzanotte), but since we were both still sneezing, in the end we remained in the warmth of our home. 

Since here mince pies are seen as a favorite food of Father Christmas (Babbo Natale) we left one mince pie on a plate along with a small glass of milk as a thank you. BTW, mince pies are made from minced fruit not meat. In the US, the filling is known by the more accurate name fruit-mince. According to superstition, it is lucky to eat one mince pie on each of the Twelve days of Christmas and that to refuse one would lead to bad luck. Who are we to argue with tradition?

On Christmas Day (il giorno di Natale) we woke up early. We started opening some of our presents. For lunch we had lamb cooked in a mint and rosemary sauce, with roast veggies on the side (potatoes, peppers and onions).

And thanks to Skype, we had a "virtual party" with friends and family. We must admit that being far away from our family has gotten much easier with modern technology like Skype!

Today is another holiday: Feast of St. Stephen (in Italy) and Boxing Day (in the UK). In Italy we honor Santo Stefano (St. Stephen), the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death for his beliefs. Boxing Day is typically a non working day in the whole of Britain. Since it falls on Saturday this year, the following Monday is the public holiday. It is a day of watching sports and playing board games with the family. The name derives from the tradition of giving seasonal gifts, on the day after Christmas, to less wealthy people and social inferiors, which was later extended to various workpeople such as laborers and servants. In the UK it certainly became a custom of the nineteenth century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their "Christmas boxes" or gifts in return for good and reliable service throughout the year on the day after Christmas. Our neighbors told us that here Boxing Day is also a day for shopping and hundreds of people spend the morning in lines outside shops, waiting to be the first to dive for the sales racks as the doors open.

Today for lunch we had lobster and crab, really scrumptious! YUM!

Then we had coffee with some friends. So far we did not receive all the presents we were supposed to have because the unexpected snow has given problems to mail delivery. Ok, we better stop rumbling now, gingerbread-hugs to you all!

Our dream of a white Christmas is here and everything is so pretty! We have -10°C/14°F and everything is frozen and a bit sparkling. Zeno had to work only half a day and arrived home for lunch. We were supposed to go shopping for food together, but since I am still sick we decided not to. We have a lot of yummy food at home anyway, and the shops will be open again on the 27th. We won’t starve, LOL!

May every moment of your Christmas be filled with happiness and the love of your families and friends!

Buon Natale! ♥ Blythe Yule! ♥ Hyvää Joulua! ♥ God Jul!
Feliz Navidad! ♥ Feliz Natal! ♥ Joyeux Noël! ♥ Frohe Weihnachten!
Merry Christmas! ♥ Καλά Χριστούγεννα! ♥ Vesel Božič!

'Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la! Only three more sleeps and Father Christmas will be here. 

I bet that for most of us it's also the season to be super busy. In the past few days I have been trying many new recipes. I made cranberry sauce, two different versions of mint sauce (an English version and an Italian one) and I started decorating a bit using oranges and clementines with cinnamon and cloves. And plenty of nuts! 

I'd also like to make meringues as beautiful and tasty as these ones...

... but mine are always a bit too sticky inside. Anyone has a good recipe to share?

We are officially dreaming of a white Christmas! When we woke up this morning the snow was almost gone, leaving a centimeter or two of crispy and slippery ice on the roads and sidewalks. This afternoon, around 2, it started snowing again. We discovered that they have no salt trucks or snow-ploughs here, so the snow is just lying on the roads forming a soft white coat.

Snow and ice continue to cause travel chaos across the UK and flights from many airports (including Glasgow) are still disrupted. I don't envy who is travelling right now!

I’ve been sitting on the sofa and watching the snow fall while drinking plenty of tea and hot soup. Too bad I wasn’t able to go out and play, but I've got a bad cold (thanks, Zeno!) and I look a lot like Rudolf the red nosed reindeer, LOL! I know hubby didn’t do it on purpose, but anyway… he did it again! He went to work, grabbed his co-workers germs and brought them home with him. He is feeling better already, but I have a bad sore throat and my nose is all stuffed. What a bad moment to get sick!

Most of our Christmas shopping is done. We are waiting for a couple of packages to arrive in the mail. It’s the first time for us, we never shop online. Time for bed, sweet dreams everyone!

A quick entry from me while Kia is wrapping a few gifts. She is waving and smiling at you all as I write this entry.

The shortest day of 2009 has been very dark and gloomy here, with just a few scattered flurries. The streets are covered with ice and busses are late because it's slippery also for them, not only for people walking cautiously on the sidewalk.

Other beautiful Christmas cards arrived to cheer up our holidays, from Jaana, Wanda Lucia, Terry, Elizabeth, Ale and Dorothea. Thanks so much, everyone!

I had a very nice time at the Christmas dinner we had last Friday. The food was not great, but fairly good. It was a three courses dinner and it was possible to choose among different starters, different main dishes and a selection of desserts. My starter was made of a small cube of roast pork meat, with a tiny slice of ham in gelatin and a spoonful of salad with grainy mustard, all on a thin bed of beetroot sauce (luckily it was very thin, because I don't like beetroot). As a main course I took the venison which was very tender, but I would have preferred it more cooked. It was accompanied by a roast potato, a spoonful of mashed potato and a mixed salad. As a dessert I have chosen a white chocolate cheesecake topped with a raspberry sauce.

I have chatted with many of my colleagues about different topics. This was the last chance for my colleagues and me to have a dinner out all together because from January some of them will start moving to the new office in Germany. Oh, right! Now that I recall, Kia and I have never told you about the new office in Germany. Hum, it will be the topic of a new entry.

Today in the office, my colleagues and I had our Christmas lunch, with different types of food brought from home. I decided to make a "torta salata al formaggio" (a savory cake with cheese). During the lunch each of us has received the gift from their Secret Santa. I have received an apron with a kilt printed on it and a funny tartan hat with fake red hair to turn immediately into a Scottish man.

Time for bed, both Kia and I are a wee bit sick today, so we better rest. Until next time…

In the past three days we've been very busy off-line, so no time to post all the things we wanted to talk about. Just to mention one thing: we woke up at 6:30 AM and it was snowing!

The main thing that kept us busy also on-line is a problem with Haloscan (the provider of our comments service) that we are trying to solve. Basically, as we mentioned previously, the free comment service is going to be discontinued in few days and we have to upgrade and transition to Echo, but something is not working and we don't know what it is. We have already contacted the Haloscan help desk and they are working on it. We hope we can find a solution so we do not lose all our old comments.

We didn't have time for any other online activity, but we will visit you all tomorrow. Good night now, sweet dreams!

Heavy snowfall is expected in parts of the UK, with south-east England expected to be worst affected. Here? We had snow today… for about 5 minutes! The fluffy snowflakes almost immediately turned into light rain.

This afternoon, after work, my sweet Kia met me at the bus stop and we went for a coffee (her), a hot cocoa (me) and a couple of handmade chocolates each. What can we say?! Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person is lying…

Tomorrow night I will go out with my bosses and my colleagues for the annual Christmas dinner.

On Monday at work we will have a Christmas lunch (with a longer break, one hour instead of 30 minutes) where each of us will bring something from home. I was supposed to bring a cake just like last year, but today I’ve been asked to bring something savory instead, since there were too many sweets already. Not sure yet what I will bring, maybe a frittata. At the end of the lunch we will deliver the Secret Santa gifts. Last year a received a nice book; let’s see what I get this year. 

We are having problems with Haloscan. A few days ago we got an e-mail that Haloscan is being discontinued on December 26th. One option is to upgrade to the new Echo commenting service for 9.95 USD/year. But we’ve not been able yet to understand how this new service works. Did any of you try it already? How is it?

This will be just a quickie; it's late but we wanted to drop in and say hello and thank you all for stopping by and for the warm welcome back. We really appreciate it!

We didn't get the predicted snow in the end, and today the sun came out… finally! At some point the sky was like split in two, and on the right it was clear like this...

...whereas on the left it was still cloudy, but with a wee rainbow.

We are all stuffed! We had meatballs (polpette) with roasted bell peppers and carrots for dinner. They were delicious, but maybe we had one too much, LOL!

Only 10 days until Christmas. Scary, isn't it? I love this time of the year and I don’t want it to fly by so fast! 

Last Saturday we went to the German Christmas Market in Edinburgh, even though it was freezing cold outside (for our standards) and there was a thick wet fog.

As you know, Glasgow has its own festive market, but the one in Edinburgh is much bigger. And the location is so much better. It's easy to get into the Christmas spirit while looking at the brightly-lit wheel in front of the Scott Monument...

... and walking through beautiful stands full of baubles, tinsels, candy canes, wooden toys, mulled wine and roasted chestnuts.

This year mulled beer and gingerbread latte seem to be the most popular winter beverages. I've never tried them 'cos I don't drink beer or milk, but I like the idea, they sound so festive.

What about you? What is your favorite winter beverage? For me coffee in the morning (all year round!) and a cup of tea or hot cocoa in the evening. I know, not very original, LOL!

Even though the festive Market in Glasgow is not comparable to the one in Edinburgh from a general point of view, there are two things that are better here: the ice skating patch is larger, nicer and in a better location, and the German sausages are tastier.

Hubby and I received other four beautiful Christmas cards today, from Annette, Barbara, Darylynn and Sonia. Thank you so much, ladies!

After three days the fog has finally dissolved. Snow has been predicted for tomorrow, but we do not believe it anymore ‘cos the weather forecast guy has been saying it for over two weeks now.

We had a nice Saint Lucia’s Day. She brought us a huge Marzipan-Stollen. It’s a traditional German cake, usually eaten during the Christmas season. It’s a loaf shaped fruitcake, powdered with icing sugar on the outside. The cake is usually made with chopped candied fruit and/or dried fruit, nuts and spices as cardamom and cinnamon.

We have also been playing with Photoshop. We wanted to create a wee art work using a bunch of our photos.

The sketches on the book are elaborations of photos of two landmarks of Kia’s hometown. Please, click HERE to see it bigger and read the credits.

Eleven days into December. Are you getting excited? Is your Christmas shopping done or haven't you started? I have a few things taken care of, but still have a few to do. Fearing another Royal Mail strike I mailed almost all my snail-mail cards and wee gifts at the end of November. Hope everyone will get them soon. Last year a few went lost. And the card my friend Sara sent me in the middle of December 2008 arrived here in April! I am still amazed by it, LOL!

The weather outside is frightful. It’s freezing cold (-2°C/28°F) and the town is mist-shrouded. Tomorrow we’d like to go to the German Christmas Market in Edinburgh, hoping it won’t be as foggy as here. The market is supposed to be huge there. Last Sunday we have been to the one in Glasgow, but it’s only a tiny one. I hope I could find a few nice Christmas decorations, maybe made out of wood.

Since we came back from Italy, we’ve been very busy with Christmas shopping and dinners out with friends. How nice is that?! Last Saturday we’ve been back for the second time to the Lebanese Restaurant in the West End of Glasgow. The menu had changed a little, but the food was great anyway. I am so fond of Lebanese cuisine, I could have it every day! Yum! I especially love baba ghanouj and hummus with khubz or pita bread, but also falafel and tabbouleh are delicious.

Here we are, back online! We can’t believe that is December already! What happened to this year?! It's unbelievable how fast the weeks flew by! The older you get the faster time goes by…

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here and the town is surrounded and covered by sparkling decorations and colorful lights. The first two Christmas cards arrived yesterday, from Dru and Zeno’s parents. This is something that warms the heart! Our mailbox was starving lately, LOL!

So far this month has been wet, gloomy and freezing cold. During the night, when it’s not raining, the frost covers the grass and sticks to the roads till morning. We wonder if we will have snow around Christmas.

Our holiday in Italy has been pleasant and relaxing. It was a whole week, but time has gone quickly, as in every holiday. The weather has been mostly dry and we even enjoyed some sun. We also had some cloudy days and some foggy evenings. We already knew that November was not the best time of the year to come back to Italy. Usually November is a rainy month.

We had a few important things to do, like going to the doctor and the dentist (just for a routine check-up), but we also tried to have a good time. We let Kia’s parents spoil us with good homemade dishes. We went to the weekly town market to have a look around, from stand to stand, and to buy a few useful things, like sweaters and trousers. On the 24th we celebrated Zeno’s birthday with a special lunch at home: “porcini fritti” and “gnocchi al pesto”.

In the afternoon we drove to Arona, a town on the shore of lake Maggiore. It has been a sunny afternoon so we enjoyed a nice walk along the lake, but in the evening it turned foggy again and we had to drive very carefully back home. Before going home we indulged ourselves with coffee, hot chocolate and pastries in the oldest pastry shop in town. The morning after we went to Novara, the nearest city, for some shopping and sightseeing, and on the way back (around noon) we stopped in a pizzeria for a good pizza.

Notwithstanding the fog, we’ve been taking photos here and there. Hopefully at least a few of them are good, but we did not have time to check yet. As soon as we do we’ll let you know. The flights from Glasgow to Milan (via Amsterdam) were fine, on time. The only worry was staying away from people blowing their nose or coughing. Flying back to Glasgow was smooth as well, except for the freezing temps waiting for us outside the airport. Luckily our flat is well insulated and was not too cold after a week.