We're Terrible

Over a month and not a word.
And now I have about... oh ...10 minutes to post something. Let's see what I can manage.
Major differences I noticed and can remember with only 10 minutes between a Texan Christmas and an Italian Christmas.
1. Christmas trees here are potted. All of them. These aren't the special Christmas Trees, and they don't come with special instructions. I know that they should because Cam got one a year ago. She was not supposed to water the tree. Instead she was supposed to carefully arrange ice cubes around the trunk, allowing very cold water to soak the dirt in a slow, drip-by-drip fashion. Because it's hot in Texas, I guess. (It occurs to me that the many trees that form the "Piney Curtain" in East Texas do not get the same sort of treatment from the residents there. And yet they survive.) Anyway...at first I was very excited by this potted tree. We rearranged the furniture to make room for our little tree, and strung it with ornaments, popcorn, and tangerines. (This is not an Italian thing. This is a crafty Jack thing.) Then I realized that putting the tree in the house required the furniture to be rearranged. Rearranged so that the tree was the focal point of our living room instead of...say...the blue refrigerator that sits in our kitchen/living room space. Having a Christmas tree in your living room is not really exciting or practical in March. And nobody has a yard. I started to find great amusement in the realization that these Italians must buy potted trees every year...to feel better about having the tree...and then they must dump them in the street on January 7, just like us Texans.
But that didn't happen. Ours is still there--out on the street. As for the rest of Rome...it's still a mystery to me.