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American Christmas Traditions in Rome

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We did it.  We finally had a traditional Christmas.  We’ve been married and living in Italy for three Christmases now, and this year we had a traditional Christmas at home.  I couldn’t have been happier about it.  It was what I needed.  
 
Rome is beautiful around the holidays with all the lights, so it’s not hard to get into the Christmas spirit here.  One of my favorite places to go is to the Christmas market in Piazza Navona.  It’s magical at night with all the lights.  It’s also a little bizarre with all the overpriced commercialized goodies for sale at the market among the beautiful, ancient buildings and fountains, but it’s still a lot of fun to walk through.  You can read more about the Christmas market in Piazza Navona here.  

Continuing with our traditional Christmas, we decided to put up a Christmas tree this year.  We don’t have a lot of space, and we certainly don’t have much storage space, so we opted for a small tree.  The little tree was perfect for our little family.  I love having it on at night for the lights to give off a soft glow … so relaxing.  You can see our little tree below, and if you look closely, you can also see our little angel.  

On Christmas morning we woke early to open gifts.  Our little Dolce also had his own presents to unwrap.  He’s only slightly spoiled. 😉

*If you missed meeting Dolce, you can check out the newest little member of our family here.  

Dolce with his Christmas loot … balls, mice, treats and a walking jacket.  

Dolce having fun with his new toys.

For lunch, I prepared traditional southern dishes.  They are what I grew up eating every year for the holidays, and they taste like home to me.  We had cornbread dressing, green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole.  We also had roasted chicken (for the hubby since I’m a vegetarian) and cranberry sauce “substitute”.  Everything was made from scratch.  There are no French’s fried onions or cream of any kind of soup mix here in Italy, and other typical ingredients are hard to find (think sweet potatoes).  So at the end of the day, I was patting myself on the back for pulling off a traditional southern American holiday meal in Italy.   

*If you would like any of the recipes, you can find them here on Why Rome’s Pinterest, under ‘Expat Food’.  
  

When it comes to cranberry sauce, I’m a canned girl.  Always have been.  All for the better in Italy though because I have never seen whole cranberries here (or even cranberry juice for that matter).  Isn’t that strange?  Anyway, I found the perfect cranberry sauce substitute.  It’s lingon jam from Ikea.  To me, it’s a tad bitter sweeter, but does the trick and gave me the cranberry sauce “fix” I was craving. 
 

Sweet potato casserole with brown sugar and nut topping

Green bean casserole with homemade fried onions

And desserts, I couldn’t leave out the desserts … brownies, banana nut muffins & bread, chocolate almond candies, and cookies with dried cranberries (from the States), dark chocolate and hazelnuts.  Needless to say, we were STUFFED at the end of the day, and I was one happy girl with a belly full of American food! 🙂 

Comments

  1. I liked the Christmas market in Piazza Navona… a little commercial, yes, but the area is usually just filled with so many tourists, it was nice to see Romans enjoying the square for once! :p

    • I agree, it’s so nice to see families and locals out enjoying the square! Thanks so much for stopping by! I just found you on Twitter. 🙂

  2. It’s funny because I don’t see Rome as a Christmas sort of location, but this post, which I came across quite accidentally makes me want to reconsider!