A few months ago Michele and I moved to a hip urban condo that's less than half the size of our old house. Every possession had to be carefully reconsidered. When all the boxes were finally packed, Christmas decorations that used to take me two hours just to get down from the attic had been consolidated to a handful of items.
But there was never any question about the presepio Michele's father made for the family when Fabio and Arianna were very young. He hammered natural sticks together to represent the stable and hand painted china figures of Mary and Joseph, a couple of shepherds, the cow and the donkey that watch patiently over the empty crib of tin foil every year. It is Arianna's job as the youngest child to place the little plastic baby on Christmas eve. When we put the presepio out this time, our new apartment really felt like home.
Unfortunately it turned out that we had to be more flexible than we would like with our traditions. My father-in-law is very, very sick and I dropped Michele at the airport on Tuesday so he could be in Naples for a time of year that is always special to Italian families, but this year even more so. Before my husband left he put the baby in the manger early, afraid that an Americana on her own would forget and mess things up.
Tomorrow Fabio and Arianna and I will host the Christmas dinner for the members of our family who live on this side of the Atlantic. My 28 year-old-daughter is opening presents with her best friend from the naval base in Sicily. But we will all be thinking of the ones we love in Naples and good times we've shared in years past.
This is a video from our trip last year at Christmas time. The presepio in Caltagirone, a charming hill town in the middle of Sicily known for its ceramics, is probably the most elaborate in the entire country.
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