Natale a Lucca (Christmas in Lucca)

In Lucca,  in the wintertime, there is an ice skating rink set up in the middle of town. That was really exciting for me and Arya because we'd only been skating a few times before. We've already gone a bunch of times and I've already gotten a lot better! Including how to skate backwards (very very slowly)! It's a lot busier on the weekends so we've been going on weekdays while the Lucchese kids are in school.

A lot of the buildings around town have been lit with special projections by the local electricity company. They're cool.

Getting a tree was very interesting. First we asked around where we could get a tree. We finally asked someone where we could find one and they suggested the grocery store, she said they had a few and that that was where she got hers. We had already been there and hadn't noticed any so we were surprised she said that. We went back to the grocery and looked around but still didn't see any. But then out the top corner of my eye I noticed two synthetic trees on top of shelves above the produce. I said, "Look! There it is!" So we ended up getting a small fake tree.

To get it home, we had to take it apart into three pieces and Mom, Arya, and I had to carry a piece each on our bikes! Dad was carrying a bunch of other stuff like ornaments and decorations. When we got home, we put it together and decorated it with the few ornaments we had. It was different not decorating a big tree like we do in America because I could reach the top without standing on a ladder! I thought it ended up looking fine. Not the best tree ever, but it works!

Even though we were in Italy this year, we decided we needed to continue our tradition of making cookies for Santa. My favorite ones to make were the sneemänner (that's our favorite German word that means "snowmen"). We had 3 different sized circle cookie cutters that used to create them.

Christmas morning we woke up at 4 o'clock! But sadly, Mom and Dad told us we couldn't come down until 6 so Arya and I sat in bed and counted down the seconds until then. I drifted off, so once it was finally 6, Arya jumped on my head and said, "Wake up! We have to get Mom and Dad now!" Arya and I had made a plan to wake Mom and Dad up. When we went downstairs, Mom was in a deep sleep, but we didn't know it, so we went on with our plan of banging on their door and singing "Do you want to build a snowman?!?!" Mom said later that day that she almost had a heart attack!

After my parents got up, we went to the living room and were excited by what we saw. The first thing I saw was a slot-car racing set sitting in front our stockings! We opened our stockings and presents and the first one I opened I haven't left for one second since I got her, her names is Mousie! Arya was most excited about her new Lego Friends sets: a mall and an animal rescue station (which has a panda so she was extra excited)!

For breakfast, we had our tradition that I've had every year as long as I can remember, Christmas tree bread. It was supposed to have red and green sprinkles, but we couldn't find any so Dad just put some food coloring on it. Yum!

For the rest of the day, we played with our new toys and Arya started her new Lego kit. Dinner was one of my favorites: ribs with apricot BBQ sauce, mashed potatoes, and green beans! The ribs are my favorite!

It was a great Christmas! The only thing that could've been better would've been seeing my family. But we got to make a bunch of FaceTime calls to catch up with many of them.

And that was our Christmas!