Saturday 25 December 2010

Un Natale Male (A Bad Christmas)

We always wanted to spend Christmas in Italy, and a few years ago we decided to do it.

We had heard that during il period natalizio (the Christmas period) our village, like many others in Italy, transformed itself into a Presepe Vivente (living nativity) set. Villagers took the parts of il fornaio (baker), il maniscalco (blacksmith), i falegnami (carpenters), i contadini (farmers), and Maria e Guiseppe (Mary and Joseph), i tre Magi (the three kings) and Gesu`Bambino (baby Jesus), the latter often the youngest baby in the village.

We looked forward to being a part of this village tradition. Good friends who owned the villa next door decided to join us, so we would be a group of nine revelers.

Our daughters would fly to London, where we lived, and together we would travel to Firenze (Florence). A good friend and my mother-in-law would fly directly from the States to Florence.

Our plans were made. I had a suitcase filled with presents for everyone. I had even tucked in a gingerbread cake mix. Coffee and gingerbread are Christmas morning favorites at our place.

Everything was on track. The girls arrived in London, and after two nights there, we got up early to make our way to Gatwick and our flight to Florence. We were all excited about the new Christmas adventure.

As we checked in, the ticket agent made a face. "This passport is expired," she said, handing it back to us.

It was mine. The woman who prides herself on organization. I had two passports for travel purposes and accidentally picked up the one that had just expired. There was no time to go back to the city to pick up the other one and still make the flight.

"I can get you on the flight tonight," the agent said. I was furious with myself, but there was nothing I could do about it. We decided that John and one daughter would go ahead with all the luggage, and the other daughter and I would take the evening flight. Not perfect, but not bad.

Two of us trained back to the city to pick up the other passport and wait until it was time to train back to Gatwick. We made the best of it and had a nice steak frites lunch.

After a few hours, we called the house in Italy to find the other two had just arrived. I told John to take the black suitcase into our room unopened because the presents were not wrapped.

Dead silence.

"What black suitcase?" he asked.

"The black one with the tan edging."

More silence.

He asked our daughter to check the car. She didn't find it. They looked all over the house. No suitcase. Maybe he had left it on the luggage carousel, in which case it would be at the airport when he came to pick us up that night. Surely that was what happened.

When we arrived at the Florence airport late that night, we were met by two solemn faces. The present-filled suitcase had not been found. It had been delivered to the airport on their flight, but it had disappeared without a trace. Was it taken by mistake or had it been un ladro (a thief)?

As we made our way down the autostrade towards the Incisa exit, the mood in the car was grim. All the presents so carefully selected, gone. The gingerbread, gone. And Christmas was three days away.

I went to bed in a funk that night. The next morning I felt the full weight of what sometimes settles on the shoulders of women during the Christmas season: the desire to make everything perfect. But in what I like to think of as a Scarlett O'Hara moment, I threw back the covers and decided that, in our family at least, the mood of the mother determines the mood of the holiday, so it was time to forget the lost presents and try to create a Buon Natale (good Christmas) nonetheless.

We descended on the weekly markets in the area and picked up new presents. They were not carefully thought out, but who had time to think? We stopped for creamy cappuccini and warm cornetti (croissants) in a little caffe full of festive market shoppers. Our spirits lifted right along with every "auguri" (best wishes) directed our way.

On a rainy Christmas morning we gathered around our rustically decorated tree and with a wood fire blazing, happily exchanged our market presents. We looked forward to a holiday dinner, Italian style, and the living nativity in town that night.

After dinner, which featured a long-legged tacchino (turkey) we all bundled up and went to town. It was still sprinkling, but we were undaunted. Nine of us, one in a wheelchair, arrived in the village looking for the Presepe vivente.

It was to start at 6 pm, so we went to wait at a local caffe. Maurizio, one of the family that runs the place, was behind the bar. We asked if he had a nice Christmas. He indicated that he did not. One daughter suggested that he had a "un Natale male" ( a bad Christmas). That brought a faint smile to his lips.

With the wheelchair clattering over the wet cobblestones, we went to another caffe. The town was dead, which perplexed those of us in search of the living Nativity.

That caffe was quiet, too. "A che ora comincia il Presepe?" (What time does the Nativity start?) we asked.

"Annullata. Fa piove." (Cancelled. It's raining). We learned it was rescheduled for January 6, long after our departure.

The whole reason for our Italian Christmas had been cancelled due to drizzle.

The weather continued to play a part in our vacanza (vacation). On the day we were to fly back to London, snow began to fall in the region. We arrived at the airport, which was operational, checked our bags, and went to the boarding gate. We waited. And waited some more. We watched the snow accumulate on the runways at an astounding rate. It was clear that nothing would be flying out that night. It took awhile, however, for the authorities to announce that the airport was closed and we should collect our luggage.

An Italian airport that closes during what would later be called an "historic" snowstorm is, to say the least, chaotic. After a few hours of waiting to reschedule our flight, we were driven over snowy roads to a nearby Novotel for the night. Our new flight was at 7 am the next morning.

That flight was cancelled, too, but not before we got up at 5 am to be there on time. We were hauled by bus through a snow-blanketed countryside to the larger airport in Pisa, which closed just as we arrived. Things were just not going our way.

The snowfall was truly enough of a weather phenomenon in Tuscany that pictures of a snow-covered Duomo made the front page of the International Herald Tribune that day.

We eventually made our way back home, weary and defeated. One daughter developed a bad flu. The other had a sore throat. John and I were exhausted. Over time, though, we all began to regale friends with our Natale tale of woe. Eventually we saw the humor in it.

It was a Christmas we wanted to forget, but it was one we will always remember.