Our First Noel

Over the weekend we decided to get our first family Christmas tree. We walked to Panarama - local mall - to do a little Christmas shopping and scout out the tree situation. In Italy (Atleast in Rome) if you want to buy any flowers or plants you go to a sort of stall that is just on the side of the road. They have all sorts of plants, flowers and trees for you to buy. So on the way to the mall we asked how much this little tree was - 20 euros. Ok. It came with the soil and planter. We do some shopping at the mall and on the way back stop off to pick up the tree. We thought we would just catch a cab or the bus the rest of the way. We were not far from our place but with Veronica, our bags, a christmas tree, planter and soil it was too much for us. At the flower/tree stall there was a new guy working. When we asked about the prices they had magically gone up to 30 Euros. We could not get him back down to 20 euros so we decided ok, its christmas, why not. He forgot to mention that with the soil and planter it was now 35 euros... fine... Now we had to figure out how to get home. The guy who sold us the tree started to say he would drive us home... for a cost. Oh man! In the end we flagged a cab down who took us all of about 1 km for the unreasonable price of 15 Euros!!!! So in the end we spent 50 Euros on a tiny Christmas tree!! I am going to make it an investment and keep it on our balcony until next christmas as well!!

Last night was a wonderful night. We brought the tree in off the balcony and decorated it. We did not have any decorations so we bought some at Panorama making our theme for this tree blue and silver. We could not find a star or anything we wanted to stick on the top so - inspired by Mary-Anne's beeny baby theme one Christmas - I stuck Petit Croquette at the top! While decorating we listened to Christmas music. Veronica was entranced by the lights and ended up with silver glitter all over her. Even after a bath I am still finding glitter from the ornaments on her.

As we were listening to music and decorating the tree I was struck by the thought that this will be our first Christmas as a little family on our own, and in a new country. I was feeling very lucky about my life, my two loves, and how fortunate we are to have each other. Since Veronica has been born she has not had a stable home, had some medical problems and moved coutntries - she has done more in her 3.5 months then some babies do in a year. We are so lucky to have her. Our little dumpling!!!