Buone Feste!

Above: Eli and Caroline play in the snow in Viterbo (and yes, we did not have mittens for Eli - who knew it would snow in Viterbo?)
Below: Our street covered in snow.


Above and below: Eli and Sam opening presents on Christmas day.


Happy Holidays or, as the Italians say, Buone Feste! It's been awhile since our last post and there's a lot to catch up on. The Savage 3 (and counting) had a great holiday here in Viterbo. We celebrated the season by cooking and baking up a storm. A few firsts included cupcakes and cookies for Sam's advisees and peppermint bark for friends and colleagues. I have to say that the peppermint bark turned out particularly well and will become a Savage Xmas tradition in the future. We experimented with lots of Italian dishes over the break and even hosted an Xmas Eve dinner for eight. Sam roasted an incredible Turkey with a pancetta-sage gravy (pancetta-sage butter was also used to keep the bird moist during the roasting process). The description alone is drool-worthy. It was a smash success! I made a delicious fresh wild mushroom soup (if I do say so myself) and our potato-gruyere pie was also a hit. Our guests rounded out the meal with some fantastic contributions as well. I had a strange hankering for pot pies all year so the next day I made turkey pot pies with the leftovers. It was a great Xmas day treat.

Anyway, enough about food and onto Xmas day. This year Eli started to catch-on to what Xmas and Babbo Natale mean in terms of presents. For days ahead of time he excitedly anticipated the big event. We had about 6 presents for him to open. The funny thing is that he took all day to open then. He wanted ample play time with each individual gift before moving on to the next. It made for a good day actually. His favorites included a Thomas train whistle and a Lego construction site. Sam got me a beautiful Max Mara scarf in addition to the Sculpture Studio workshop that I attended earlier in the month (big gift since it entailed the cost of the workshop and two full days of babysitting). My gift to him was a much-coveted leather messenger bag and an assortment of expat foods that kept the cooking trend alive for the rest of the vacation.

Besides the American food blitz, the rest of the week was a bit boring since all of Italy closes down for Xmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day. In a fairly rare event we did get a bit of snow on the 28th which was great amusement for half the day. After the downtime that was forced upon us, we capped off Sam's vacation with a four day excursion to Rome. It was a fantastic trip! One for the books. I'll cover it in my next post. Until then, ciao belli!