Snapshots from our Christmas

This year we spent Christmas in Finland. Unfortunately my husband couldn't come because first he didn't get enough days off and when he finally did, it was too late to book the flight. We didn't want to leave my father alone on Christmas, so me and the children went to Finland. We had a nice Christmas, although we missed my mummy a lot. There was no snow in Finland this Christmas, but we decorated the Christmas tree, went to the Christmas sauna, baked Christmas goodies, ate a good Christmas dinner and opened presents.

On Christmas Day we spent a lazy day eating chocolate, we learnt to play a game called Fia, which became our Christmas game and I took a little walk out with Sofia and later also with Daniele. The days are really short here and so dark without snow.

Our Christmas card 2016

I used to be good at sending my own made Christmas cards to people by post, but now it has become more and more difficult. People don't send letters or postcards anymore, so it's not easy to find stamps anymore. Also I'm getting slower and slower to get things ready for Christmas, so this year I decided to share this card only on my Facebook account and to send it by post to Armando's cousins and aunt in America because we always get so nice cards from them.
Going throug my photos of this year I noticed that I had very few nice photos of the whole family. In our everyday life we don't spend so much time together, a part from dinner in the evening and this year Daniele didn't travel with us at all.
This was the Christmas card I managed to do this year. The photo was taken on Carlotta's Confirmation day and I added Icoon to the photo in post processing.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!

Week 52 - Christmas portrait

A family portrait taken on Christmas Eve with the self-timer ends this year's week photo project.
I haven't decided wether to do this again in 2015 or to try some other project.

Week 50 - Decorating the Christmas tree

This week we decorated the Christmas tree. In Italy you traditionally do it on the 8th of December, but that day none of us was at home, so we did it on Tuesday evening instead when I managed to find a moment when all my three children were gathered.
As always, I was very late with my Christmas preparations, but we put on some Christmas music and welcomed Christmas to our house and I decided not to stress!

Merry Christmas

I have sent self made christmas cards every year with a printed christmas photo of my children. But this year I just didn't make it. My eldest one, Daniele didn't want to pose for the photo amd I was too busy working to insist or to create something from other photos that I have of them, so this was what I came out with this year. I had some fun testing the bokeh effect. And this year I sent out my Christmas greetings only electronically. But I guess it's better than nothing! Merry Christmas!

Back to Rome and a bit of sadness

It's always a bit difficult to come back here to Italy after one and a half month in Finland. Now that my children are growing it gets even more difficult. Daniele and Sofia had already been back here for 10 days and were happily out with friends and didn't care too much about us coming back from Finland. I think that was the fact that made me most sad, noticing that nobody really cared. Maybe I would have expected my husband to gather everyone and have a pizza evening out or something to make us feel a bit welcome, but nope. I should have learnt by now that I shouldn't expect anything from anyone, just pretend, that's the only way! Instead I found a dirty and dusty house that no one had been cleaning very often in the whole summer, the bed linen and the towels hadn't been changed and the garden looked sad with almost all flowers dried and the grass ugly. It seemed that everyone had been waiting for me to do all the things. Carlotta was sad because the swing had been taken away (it was broken, but you could use it, if you were careful not to go too fast).

I feel I really should do something about the house and the garden to make it more pleasing to my eyes. As my mother-in-law passed away last autumn, we have been emptying her flat and lots of her things are now in our house. Our house isn't so big and all the things I had chosen because I found them pretty have disappeared under all other things that I haven't chosen to have in my home. I think the first thing would be to get rid of everything that we don't need, but it feels like a huge project.

Anyway I think the best thing for me is to try to find beautiful things here as I did in Finland, take my camera and go out and do and see things with or without the rest of the family. My teenagers wont be coming with me so much anymore, my husband's thoughts and energy are absorbed by his marathons, so I have to do things I like to do, like go horse riding, meet friends and do things that make me feel good. And of course try to be a bit healthy because that also makes you feel better.

Week 52 - The last week of the year and Welcome 2014

In this week's post I encluded the last 9 days of the year. On the 23rd the whole family travelled to Finland. Next day was Christmas Eve. We had a nice dinner and everyone got some presents. We took a walk on Christmas day and Carlotta could go by bicycle as there was no snow in Finland this year. My husband and my children had brought the tombola game from Italy so we played it a few times. On the 27th the shops opened again and we found some clothes at the winter sales. We visited my friend and their sweet little cat. Daniele went to his friend in Lovisa and me, my mother and the girls went to Helsinki. My mother had reserved tickets to the opera "La Cenerentola" and we stayed in a hotel in the centre of Helsinki. It was a lovely Christmas present for us! Me and the girls welcomed the new year at my brother's house and played a Finnish game called "The star of Africa" till half past two in the night. It's easy enough and exciting enough for everyone and Carlotta didn't want to stop at all.

Week 51 - The last week before Christmas

This week was very busy. I finally finished all the work I had to deliver before Christmas - what a relief! Sofia trained for the last show jumping competitions of this year. Didn't make it to go to the hairdresser's with Carlotta, so I cut her fringe myself. This week I did all my Christmas shopping.
Friday on our way home from the horse stables we had an aperitif with our friends and on Sunday evening we invited them to our house. Carlotta had decorated a wine bottle at school and we opened it and had dinner and pandoro (an Italian Christmas cake) and exchanged Christmas gifts with them. In the morning we had our jumping competition and then we packed because the next day we were going to fly to Finland.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Finland!

Week 50 - Mulled wine after a stressful week

It's getting late, but at least I have managed to catch up with the week posts!
Carlotta making hot chocolate - Carlotta got a nail file in the advent calender and was very happy - The last leave on the apricot tree - The dark afternoons make it difficult to get good photos of the riding lessons. I want a brighter camera lens! - A new horse that I have been riding - On Saturday I made the dough for ginger breads - And on Sunday Sofia had her riding lesson, we baked ginger breads and had a very nice afternoon with our friends with warm mulled wine (glögg) and Christmas pastries and sweets.
What you don't see on the photos is that I was really, really tired this week working late every night, going to talk with Carlotta's and Sofia's teachers (it's a time taking project here) and that I had problems with my car again - this time the friction broke. Everything fixed now and our Sunday with mulled wine was very relaxing and I really needed it!

Week 52 - Waiting for Santa Claus

This is the last post for this year's 52 week's project. It was hard to choose one photo, but I chose Carlotta showing the drawing she made for Santa Claus. She made it while waiting for the evening when Santa usually leaves his sack outside our door. I put two photos because the drawing has two sides.

And these are a few moments of our Christmas.

Week 50 - Christmas mail

We got Christmas mail from Finland this week. My mother had sent it quite a while ago and this week it finally reached us. There was Finnish chocolate and an advent calendar. Me and the girls saw the package when we came back from school and it made us very happy!

This week I started some serious christmas shopping hoping not to have to stress with it the last days before christmas. On the 13th, the Lucia day, I went to my friend who had invited me and two other Finnish friends for a Christmas brunch. She had made lots of yummie christmas goodies and we had a nice morning chatting in Finnish. On the week-end Sofia had the finals in the Pony Champions Winter Tour in show jumping and she came third, so the week finished nicely if we don't consider the fact that I got a flat tyre on our way home. On Saturday we also were invited to dinner to one of Armando's old school friends. He is married to an Icelandic woman and we used to see each other often before we got children and moved further away from each other. Now we just realized that last time we saw each other was 7 years ago , so let's hope we can meet a bit more often in the future!

Merry Christmas

This was our Christmas card this year.

Week 49 - A Friday evening at home and decorating the tree

It's been really cold this week and it has been raining and hailing. We have been scraping frost from the car windows in the morning, which is not so usual here in Rome. This week on friday evening we all stayed at home, the weather was bad and I was tired and didn't feel like going anywhere in the evening. I often go out eating on Fridays with the children and our friends and Daniele and Sofia were very disappointed that we didn't do it this Friday. But their good mood slowly returned when we had lit the fire, watched a TV series all together and made bruschettas and baked potatoes in the fireplace.

 On Saturday it was the 8th of December and on that day people decorate their Christmas trees here in Italy. We follow the tradition and I try to take some photos for our Christmas cards while we do it.
One of the big issues is who gets to put the star on top of the tree. Daniele felt so grown up so he let Sofia and Carlotta argue and about it this year. After that, in the evening, we had a nice pizza evening with some more mulled wine at our house with our good friends.

Christmas photo collage

I used a template I found in this site to make a collage of our Christmas photos. It's very nice and I think I will use it also to make monthly collages.

Merry Christmas to all

Christmas baking

Last Sunday the weather was perfect for staying at home with fire in the fireplace and baking gingerbread cookies. Daniele went to a friend of his, so I baked together with the girls. It was fun and the gingerbread dough was good as always :)

 Gingerbread horses

It was the fourth Sunday of Advent, which means it's Christmas very soon. Help, I still have lots of things to do. I'm late as always...