Cains in Europe!: Buon Natale!

Merry Christmas! We hope that everyone is enjoying the holidays and spending time with family and friends. Although this is probably the hardest time of the season for us to be away from our families, we are already looking forward to our "Christmas in July" with them, right Laurie?! Tyler's mom has mentioned before that since we are never together on Christmas, we should have a Christmas with my family and Tyler's family in the summer. But with us getting married this July and Erica (Tyler's sister) getting married last July, we have yet to get around to it. So I am excited for this coming summer to have our Christmas!

HUGE tree in the center in Bologna!

Our tree :)

I've spent 3 of the last 4 Christmases in Europe and it is just not the same as back home! Of course Christmas is a big celebration here, but there is nothing like an American Christmas! Even though Christmas here is generally the same, there are a few differences in the traditions. Finding stockings here was like finding needles in a haystack. Apparently in Italy stockings aren't part of the Christmas tradition?? I don't know but we looked in at least half a dozen stores and couldn't find any stockings. Finally, we found some at a store that would be equivalent to a dollar general store in the States. They literally had 2 stockings and they are most hideous things I have ever seen. Obviously being one euro each, they are cheaply made and I'm convinced someone made them while blindfolded.

They are ten times worse than what they photograph. They are just awful. The gold one is supposed to have a Santa holding a sign that says "Buon Natale" but that fell off the minute I took it out of the bag. You get what you pay for but hey, we have some stockings!

Even though we miss being in the States and we aren't with our family and friends right now, we are making most of the time we have here. We are very happy to be with each other and have our first Christmas together as a married couple. We are trying to start our own traditions that we will have for years to come as well as doing the typical things like watching Christmas movies and making Christmas cookies.