Ho Ho Ho!

With the Christmas season approaching and not being in proximity to our friends and family, combined with the warm temperament and lack of snow in the quasi-Mediterranean climate that is Rome, I have had to put some real effort into getting into the holiday sprit this year. I think my hard work is paying off though, a few days before Christmas and I am feeling no less spirit than Mrs. Claus herself.

In fact, last weekend, I was Mrs. Claus for a few short hours. The American Women’s Club that I belong to sponsors a few local orphanages during Christmas; we bought gifts for all of the children and hosted a party at their home. I had volunteered to help work on the project and subsequently got so carried away with my newfound Christmas spirit, that I enlisted Josh’s help as well. I volunteered him to play the role of the good Saint Nick at the party! It took a bit of time before he would believed what I had actually signed him up for, but if you know my good hearted-husband, you know that he wouldn’t have refused anyway, so what is the different if I asked or not!?

We had a fantastic time, when Josh walked in as Santa Claus, or as the Italian tots say, Babbe Natale, the place went nuts, I think he was bigger than Jim Tressel walking into a dorm room on South Campus. He was immediately mobbed, hugged, pulled and kissed! Lots of the usual questions were asked, like where does Santa live, and how does he know their names, etc etc. We did our best to try to answer back in our broken Italian, but the kids didn’t seem to mind too much, if at all, they were just happy that we were there, never mind the gifts and pounds of sugar that we brought. In fact, I think I might seek out more 2 year olds for conversation, I can hang with them, you know. We stuck to the "how old are you" and "I like cookie", I could totally be an Italian toddler.

We had a moment thinking that our cover was blown, when one small boy walked up to Josh and said, “Non sai babbe natale” (You are not Babbe Natale). “No?”, Josh answered. “No”, he replied knowingly, “Parli inglese, sai Santa Clause” (You speak English, you are Santa Claus). What a little wise guy, there is one in every bunch; it might be cute this year, but if he keeps this up, he may be finding a lump of coal in his stocking sometime during his adolescent years.

We left the orphanage with our hearts full and a good feeling, although after further discussion we figured out that “Ho Ho Ho” in Italian, is the first person singular (“I”) form of the verb essere, “to be”, so Josh probably walked around all morning much to the confusion of the Italian kids saying “I am I am I am”! They are still pondering what Santa thought he was. Oh well, if they bought into the awful fake beard he was wearing, they probably didn’t think much about it.