Christmas in VenicePosted by: Barry - Dec 16, 2009Tagged in: Venice
![]() Snowfall in Venice Over-commercialization of Christmas has become the phrase we use to describe this holiday celebration in the United States. Long before Halloween, we start to hear Christmas carols in the malls throughout the 50 states. So our first Christmas in Italy was a bit of a culture shock. Thanksgiving had come and gone, and there was still no sign that Christmas was approaching. No lights hanging in the windows, no trees, no songs in the stores. We couldn’t even find Christmas cards. What gives?
How would we get the tree back to our apartment on the other side of the Grande Canal? Debbie and I stopped at a café to devise a plan. We picked out a tree, and carried it to the Grande Canal where we boarded a traghetto (a gondola used by residents to traverse the canal) standing up holding our tree, then walked the remaining ¼ mile to the house. I then repeated the process (crossing the Grande Canal two more times) with the bucket and 50 pounds of dirt. We found a string of lights in an electric store, and a few ornaments in the COIN department store, where we could choose from at least 6 or 7 ornaments. We surrounded the tree with a few poinsettias, and we were set for the holiday. This process took the entire day and a good portion of the night. We collapsed that night in bed, thankful that Christmas only comes once a year.
(From Barrys' soon to be released book about life in Venice, "It's Enough to Make a Venetian Blind")
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