Natale in Magenta

Typical- we move to a country more likely to produce snow on Christmas Day and the whole of Europe- including the UK turns white the week before Christmas
It’s been strange being so far from home at Christmas, but Praise the Lord for Skype. I seem to have spent most of my time on the computer chatting to friends back home.

Christmas really began here for me with school assembly which is a good traditional place to start. Less usual was it being held on a Saturday morning in the outdoor tent just outside the school. It had also snowed heavily overnight and fog had descended over Magenta. Undeterred Tara & I donned our salopettes, thick winter jackets, gloves and hats. I had 2 scarves on which may seem excessive but I was cosy. The blokes in the family rolled their eyes at our yeti outfits but I was vindicated when having trekked the 3 minute walk to the tent I saw another woman equally attired.

School assemblies are the same the world over. The first year group stood up with 4 large cards with P E R U on them. ‘Ah ah’ I thought, ‘countries of the world’. Slightly bemused as to the relevance of Peru to the birth of Jesus, but I was willing to go with it. The next country was N N A T. Now my Italian is not brilliant but I know there are no words beginning with NN in the Italian language and there are no countries beginning with NN either, well not to my knowledge. Turns out the posters say ‘Per Un Natale Migliore’, for a better Christmas. Each class did a turn and in the grand honoured tradition of assemblies one class had to play the recorders. They are no better played in Italian than in English which is re-assuring.

Two hours later, with a brief unofficial break at the coffee bar the other side of the piazza the assembly finished with a rendition of ‘We are the world’ and all the parents joined in. After 9 months here, I was stood arm in arm with one of my Italian friends (we were trying to keep warm) singing away and of course I was in tears that I had after all the hard work, made some lovely friends, my language skills were coming on albeit slowly and I was feeling fairly settled here.

Snow on a flood plain does not leave much scope for sledging down hills; albeit we have the Alps as a backdrop but they are not immediately available after a snow storm, but the park is good for snow angels and snow rugby.

The crib in the piazza has become more authentically Christmassy by the addition of snow and ice in the manger. I have resisted the urge to cut holly from the decoration around the crib, it being the only holly I can find around here. Although given the amount of foliage around the crib I feel I could cut a couple of sprigs without anyone noticing, it was succinctly pointed out to me that God would notice so this year we are holly free in the house.

There are a number of cribs around the town, our favourite has been voted as the crib in the military camp where the crib has been expanded to include a few houses from Bethlehem and placed between 2 decommissioned field guns.

Christmas Eve not unsurprisingly heralds bells from San Martino. They began at 10pm, and were fairly continuous until gone midnight.

Christmas Day here has been fairly normal for Christmas. The children were up at 6.30 and had the presents opened by quarter past seven. We went for our Christmas walk minus the dog, and only around the town as it was too foggy to venture anywhere beautiful. The oven performed well enough to cook the turkey, but thanks to the quirks of the flat when I blow dried my hair I had to turn the oven off so I didn’t blow the electrics. Which also meant I didn’t get a cup of tea once the oven was on and breakfast was over, which in turn meant I started on the Prosecco slightly earlier than normal, so it wasn’t all bad!

The sun came out at midday and started to melt the snow, and for 10 minutes in the sun it felt a tiny bit warm. I did want to eat Christmas Dinner out on the balcony but I am using it the moment as my other fridge at the moment so it probably wise that we stayed indoors.

It does feel like we are a thousand miles from home, but as a one off its fine. And I think I will look back with fondness at my Christmas in Magenta.

Buon Natale

Signora McManoos

Christmas is Coming

Christmas arrived in Magenta today: we have over the last few weeks seen the lights go up and be switched on, decorations appear in shop windows and the children have been learning various Christmas songs at school however it has all been fairly muted with Iper the local supermarket only smothering the shop floor with Christmas goods during the last fortnight.
The Garden Centre has been set up for the last 2 months with the most complete display of Christmas decorations I have ever seen. Rooms are themed according to colour to start with, all fairly predictable: White, Silver, Gold, Red, Cream/ Coffee with Espresso and Cappuccino mug bauble available at a trifling €13 a piece. A blue fish theme threw me slightly, but plenty of Christmas animals seem covered such as Polar Bears, Owls, Penguins, so why not fish? American decorations are popular with Fabulous Las Vegas, New York, Simpsons, Betty Boop and Coca Cola baubles all available at a price.
But the real excess comes in the Nativity Scene department. Whole walls are given over to the Nativity, where, not content with a manger the whole town of Bethlehem is depicted in various sizes, and numerous houses, animals, characters and pizza ovens with flickering lights can be bought. Not wishing to be out done I have added to my piccolo manger by purchasing 2 Roman Centurions who seem integral to any Christmas story here. I also want a pizza oven as now I am firmly of the opinion that Christmas in Bethlehem wasn’t Christmas without its own pizza oven (yes I know that Christmas was more likely to have been in September due to the census etc, and that it is a hi-jacked pagan festival).
The arrival of Christmas here was a fairly formal affair, Banda Civica marched along via Garibaldi to the piazza, where having circumnavigated the ice rink they set up opposite the nativity scene that has been built complete with water feature but minus an all important pizza oven or Roman centurion. The band then proceeded to take us through some well worn classics such as Jingle Bells, I’m dreaming of a White Christmas and the First Noel. The square was packed, the ice rink was surrounded by on lookers. Closer inspection of the ice skaters revealed that they were covered in make-up and glitter, and seemed highly inappropriately dressed for the weather. Some pseudo professionals had hit the ice. Wandering over to the nativity scene we were stopped by barriers. Clearly there was going to be an official opening of the manger. Just as this was getting boring Don Mario our main priest of Magenta rushed up and was ushered onto main stage. He apologised for being late, unusual I thought given nothing starts on time here, but further explained he had hot-footed it straight from a Baptism. This is better than an official opening; we had a blessing on our hands. The Don gave a quick speech/sermon and then we all made the sign of the Cross, recited a quick Our Father, a Preghiamo (let us pray) and we were done. Christmas was officially here in Magenta. We had a bag of hot chestnuts to celebrate and went to watch the ice skaters who Tangoed, Bohemian Rhapsodied, Can canned and Flamingoed their way around the ice.
We have put our lights up around the balcone and I have lights in my olive tree which is very exciting.
The weather has turned itself down a few more degrees again, with frosty mornings and sunshine. The Fur Coats are out with a vengeance. Its big coat weather here from now on and snow is forecast for next week. Whether it arrives is another matter but it’s on its way. Hooray.