Christmas in Siena

Buon Natale ("Merry Christmas") everyone!  Siena is all decorated with lights and Christmas trees now.  In fact, just a few days ago, we even had some snow - which is a rare sight to see in Siena.

Justin and Becky setup a small tree on their kitchen table with a few lights and decorations on it.  That's me in the picture helping them with the decorations (actually, I was just playing around - too many Christmas sweets and I get a little goofy).

On Christmas eve, we had a nice spaghetti dinner with a home-made ragù sauce.  Ragù is a meat sauce, similar to the stuff that you all like to eat on your spaghetti.  It was delicious!  I went to sleep early so Christmas morning would come sooner, but I was too excited to fall asleep.

Well, I must have dozed off for a bit because the next thing I heard in the morning was Christmas music (Trans-Siberian Orchestra!).  Finally it was Christmas!  The little tree was all lit up and a few presents had been carefully laid out beneath it.  Looks like someone was good this year!

After our Christmas pancake breakfast, we strolled out into town to look at all of the different Christmas trees.  Siena is made up of many different neighborhoods, 17 neighborhoods to be exact.  Neighborhood in Italian is "contrada".  Each contrada decorates their own Christmas tree.  This is usually done by the kids who live in the contrada, but sometimes the adults help too.  Each contrada decorates their trees using their own mascot and colors.  Needless to say, each tree was unique!

What a fun day!  I think I'll close for now - maybe I'll have some hot cocoa!  Until my next adventure, this is Flat Stanley saying, "Ciao amici" and "Buon Natale" to all and to all a good night!