A New Year’s Eve In Italy

The Countdown

I hear the clock ticking. All day. Given all the clocks in our house are digital, the ticking is in my head. I’m obsessed with time today. It is December 31^st and there is at this moment, 12 hours and 24 minutes left of this year.

Our annus horribilis – as Queen Elizabeth II so famously referred to her year of turmoil in 1992 – is almost over. And with it, we collectively hope for an end to the death and destruction of life as we know it as we close the door – or rather slam the door – on 2020.

Covid came creeping into our lives in the early months of the year and settled in for the long run. With its arrival, lives and livelihoods have been swept away; hearts have been broken and the carefree way of life we took for granted seems a distant memory.

What can we expect from 2021? Nobody knows for sure but certainly the availability of the much-anticipated vaccines will soon ease the growing pressure on worldwide health services and offers us a glimmer of hope that our lives BC (before Covid) may be returned to us.

We just don’t know. We hope as we prepare to celebrate NYE 2021, we can do so together. We can gather and celebrate what has been, if not a stellar year, a much better one than 2020. We hope we can kiss at midnight as we wish each other tanti belle cose, “many beautiful things” for the new year.

But for now, we have this year to say arrivederci to and a new one to greet. When I came downstairs this morning, Peter handed me a coffee spiked with chocolate Baileys, my new holiday favorite, and with a big smile said, “We know of all the terrible things that have happened this year.  Let’s not talk about them today. Let’s instead spend the day talking about all the good things that have happened because there have been some really good things.” Amen to that.  

My always ‘glass is half full’ husband pulls me from the brink of despair and shines a much-needed bright light on what’s really important today: gratitude.

Italian Lessons

I grew up with a deep love for all things Christmas passed on to me from my mother. Our house was filled with green garlands, dozens of Christmas cards covering the mantle, colorful lights strung around the house and garden and the smell of my Mom’s Christmas cookies baking in the oven.

We wrote letters to Santa, carefully composed our wish lists from The Sears Christmas catalogue and counted down the days ‘til December 25^th on our candy cane advent calendar. Christmas in Canada was ‘full on’.

Christmas in Italy is different. Less about Santa or Babbo Natale as he is known here and far more about the spiritual relevance of the holiday: the birth of Christ and the journey of the Magi to visit baby Jesus, culminating on January 6^th. It is about family and food and festas. I have grown to love the quiet yet joyful way Christmas is celebrated here.

So this year, I wondered how would Italians greet the Christmas season after such a challenging year that saw us struggle with the worst human cost per capita of Covid, second only to the U.S?  With revolving lockdowns and orders banning family gatherings and inter-regional travel, how would fun-loving, family-oriented Italians cope?

I quickly learned they would cope as they always have when faced with adversity, setbacks and struggles.  They preserve. They refuse to be beaten or diminished. They greet passersby with Auguri (well-wishes) when crossing paths in the local grocery store aisles, their masked-smile always reaching their eyes.

They chat amongst strangers at the check out counter and tell each other everything is abastanza bene or as well as can be. “It is just the way it is this year,” they say.

But life goes on and we will embrace each other next year.  

Such optimism, such acceptance, such a powerful life lesson.

I have grown to love Italians for their irrepressible spirit; their readiness to celebrate even the smallest of victories and the quietest of moments. They are a people who have seen the worst of humanity; survived world wars and overcome every manner of hardship. Yet they are happy. Or more accurately, they are content. And they are abundantly hopeful that better days are always ahead.  

I may have Italian citizenship but I have a long way to go to become more Italian. I vow this will be part of my new year’s resolutions – to smile more easily, to love more deeply, to be more hopeful. I vow to be more Italian.

New Year’s Resolutions

When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, you’re either a person who loves or hates them. Okay, to be honest, most people hate them. I used to rather them like. Forcing myself to sit down at the end of the year and take stock of what I’ve done and what I’d like to do and what didn’t get done on my resolution list the previous year, always seemed like a positive, life-affirming thing to do.

My lists almost always included learning something new. One year, I vowed to learn the guitar and succeeded marginally by learning four chords and was able to do a pretty mean version of John Denver’s, “Country Roads”. Another year, I took up dragon boat racing and ended up placing fourth in our team’s division in California. You might have guessed by now I am very goal oriented. I set goals and work hard to achieve them. And New Year’s resolutions have helped me to fulfill many of my life dreams.

But as this year of living under the cloud of Covid comes to a close, I can’t seem to muster up the desire to add to my ‘do’ list. I feel motivated to take a closer look at what I can ‘be’. How I can make changes to how I relate and interact in this new world we are all now facing? What changes would help me find more peace and contentment at a time of such uncertainty and crisis? I’ve thought long and hard and come up with some answers that work for me.

So here are my New Year’s resolutions for 2021. I vow to be more tolerant. To achieve this, I will have to be more patient, something I have struggled with all my life. But if this year of spending much time away from family and friends has taught me anything, it is that we all struggle with our own private demons. Even the happiest of people have their burdens. Being tolerant of our differences, of opinion, of lifestyle, of values, goes a long way to finding peace of mind.

I vow to be more aware of the needs of those around me. When we are busy with our own lives, racing here and there, we often don’t see what is right in front of us. This year, we’ve all had to slow down, sit still and look around us. If you look hard enough, you will see a friend who needs some connection, a stranger who needs a hand, a family member who needs to hear, “I love you”.

And lastly, I vow to be kinder. Kindness is a gift that always gives back. It doesn’t cost us a thing and its value can’t be measured.  And it’s on the subject of kindness that I come full circle to what I can learn from Italians.

This week, I read a story in on online Italian newspaper that touched my heart. A 94-year old man, living in a small town on the outskirts of Milan was faced with spending Christmas alone. His relatives could not be with him due to the current national travel restrictions. The old man couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing another living soul on Christmas day. So he phoned the local carabanieri (police) and explained he was sad and alone and asked if they could join him for a drink. Just one drink.

Half an hour later, two officers rang his doorbell – one with prosecco in hand and the other with panettone (Italian cake). The toasted each other, ate some cake and set up a video chat call so the man could see and talk to his family. I’m going to bet that was an act of kindness this sweet old man will never forget.

The world can use more kindness. Let it begin with you – and me.

I have whiled away the afternoon writing this in between cooking for tonight’s New Year’s Eve dinner. It will be just the two of us.  It is now 4pm. The clock continues to tick towards midnight. Soon it will be dark and Peter and I will change into our sweatpants, pop open some bubbly and set up our planned dance party for two.

We’ve decided to dance out 2020 and dance in 2021. To bring some joy to the end of this difficult year and the beginning of a new, more promising one. I suspect I may shed a tear of relief when the clock strikes midnight that it is now behind us – that the worst of it is in the rear view mirror. 

And I will raise a glass – or two – to all of you. To health, to happiness, and above all, to love.

Until we meet again…

Anna