Tis the Season

On Friday night, my friends and I went to Piazza Navona to check out the Christmas market that is held in the main square in the month of the December.  When we arrived, there was Christmas music playing and booths sets up throughout the entire square each decorated with their own unique display of Christmas lights.  The stands sold various kinds of Christmas sweets, toys, nativity figures, decorations, balloons, jars of preserves, bunches of holly, colorful shawls, pots of poinsettias, stuffed bears, metal tops, porcelain dolls, and trinkets.  My favorite stalls were the ones carrying my dream foods of gumdrops, fudge, caramels and hard sugary candies.  Speaking of Christmas treats, I have taken it upon myself to taste Italy’s famous Christmas cake called the panettone.  Now it is important to not call it or relate it to fruit cake (the Italians no take it well).  It's like a pound cake but full of candied fruits, making it nutritious as well. OK, maybe it's not exactly good for you, but if you're in Italy in December or January, chances are good that you'll be offered a piece of panettone, and you wouldn't want to offend your hosts by turning it down, would you?  Panettone cakes are actually quite common as gifts for Christmas. In the middle of the square there is a merry-go-round.  Later this month a nativity scene is unveiled and just before Christmas the auxiliary bishop of Rome blesses this famous square and walks through the square passing the colorfully lit stalls.

This weekend I also went to mass at the Vatican.  As I entered Saint Peters Square once again it was packed with people.  I waited around for a couple of minutes and the Pope came out from his room onto the balcony and gave a blessing that blasts throughout the entire square.  The middle window that he appears from is called the Door of Filarete.  Smack in the middle of the square there was a huge crane putting up a massive Christmas tree.  Christmas trees are really not an Italian tradition but are starting to become more popular. Tree decorations are usually fairly simple, often just lights.  This years Christmas tree is 94 years old. The tree was cut down last week near Luson in the Dolomites north of Bolzano, picked from among hundreds of fellow giants in a 1,150m-high wood owned by local landowner Martin Ragginer. The tree is officially donated from the region called Trentino-Alto Adige.  The tree is called a spruce tree and  will be decked out with 3,000 gold and silver balls as well as 1,500 white and yellow LED lights.  It is kind of funny how there are a bunch of articles stressing that the Vatican is being more energy efficient by using LED lights for the tree.   At the top of the tree there will be a star.  It will be lit up for the first time on December 17, at 4:30, in a special ceremony attended by people from Trentino (where the tree came from), folk groups and choirs. I am going to try to go to it because I will be done with finals by then.  Donating a Christmas tree to the home of Catholicism is considered a great honor and every year a different region or country is given this privilege. Trentino-Alto Adige is also donating another 50 smaller trees, which will be set up within the Vatican itself. Pope John Paul II initiated the Christmas tree tradition in 1982 and trees have been donated in recent years by a number of European countries, including Romania, Austria and the Czech Republic. Governments stand in line for their turn to send a Christmas tree to the Vatican.

This weekend I also visited the Pyramid of Cestius.  The pyramid holds a lot of history but I must admit my favorite part about the visit was that right next to the Pyramid was a cat sanctuary.  We were able to enter and saw about 50 cats walking around and were able to play with them.  The cats all have beds and we were even able to go into the back room to see the baby kittens.  The sanctuary accepts donations because the cats are all well fed and it is a nursery for them.  I had fun playing with the cats and it made me miss Punkie!