New Year's Eve
I was sure that the New Year’s Eve celebration in Italy would bring lots of food, wine, sweets and games…I was right. I’m beginning to realize that every holiday (and there seems to be a lot more here than in America) is cause for the most festive of parties. Since Christmas, I’ve been eating, drinking, and gambling away my centesimi playing traditional card games with not so American (from Naples) cards and tombola (similar to bingo).
I really adore the fact that Italian families choose to celebrate together. I assume the younger and/or single crowd was out living it up at some crazy club, but the older and/or married couples live it up at home with champagne and cake. The latter is more my speed, being the ripe age of 27 and married has slowed my pace and I love it. Honestly, a few little bambini would make this time even more enjoyable…maybe next year.
So we ate and drank, drank and ate and counted down the New Year watching festivities filmed in Rome rather than Times Square. Equally as thrilling for me, as it's the New Year’s kiss that is the most important.
The stroke of midnight brought thunderous booms and a spectacular display of fireworks. We were at a perfect point in the city to be able to see 3 different displays being fired at once. It was absolutely gorgeous. We had our own little fireworks as did the rest of the city judging from the smoke content in the air! We toasted our health with “the bubbly”, ate sweets and continued to rob each other of our money playing games until 3 in the morning.
A few traditions that were shared with me, although not witnessed by me were: 1. Red underwear is traditionally worn on New Year’s Eve to bring luck for the next year (there was NO getting my husband to trade in his black undies for red ones…what a bore!). 2. People throw out all their old possessions as a symbol of a new start (but they throw it out of their windows, regardless of which floor they live on!). 3. They eat lentils as a part of their dinner to bring luck in money-served along with a giant pig leg (including the foot) that has been hollowed out and stuffed with some kind of meat mixture...It tastes as good as is sounds. Take that however you'd like.
I really adore the fact that Italian families choose to celebrate together. I assume the younger and/or single crowd was out living it up at some crazy club, but the older and/or married couples live it up at home with champagne and cake. The latter is more my speed, being the ripe age of 27 and married has slowed my pace and I love it. Honestly, a few little bambini would make this time even more enjoyable…maybe next year.
So we ate and drank, drank and ate and counted down the New Year watching festivities filmed in Rome rather than Times Square. Equally as thrilling for me, as it's the New Year’s kiss that is the most important.
The stroke of midnight brought thunderous booms and a spectacular display of fireworks. We were at a perfect point in the city to be able to see 3 different displays being fired at once. It was absolutely gorgeous. We had our own little fireworks as did the rest of the city judging from the smoke content in the air! We toasted our health with “the bubbly”, ate sweets and continued to rob each other of our money playing games until 3 in the morning.
A few traditions that were shared with me, although not witnessed by me were: 1. Red underwear is traditionally worn on New Year’s Eve to bring luck for the next year (there was NO getting my husband to trade in his black undies for red ones…what a bore!). 2. People throw out all their old possessions as a symbol of a new start (but they throw it out of their windows, regardless of which floor they live on!). 3. They eat lentils as a part of their dinner to bring luck in money-served along with a giant pig leg (including the foot) that has been hollowed out and stuffed with some kind of meat mixture...It tastes as good as is sounds. Take that however you'd like.