Days 7: Christmas Eve in Rome

Most of the early hours of Christmas Eve were spent sleeping in at the mission home. At least the teenagers anyway. Rick and I took a little venture down to the market and did some last minute shopping. We do the same thing every year, worry about one particular child, thinking he/she doesn't have as much as the others. So, we focus on that child and then on Christmas Eve when we lay everything out, it is a completely different child that doesn't have as much. This was the case with Andrew. We had forgotten that we really wanted to get him a nice watch. We were left to find one in the quaint little neighborhood shops. We finally found a very nice jewelry store and bought a perfect Italian watch for him. Once our shopping was done we headed back to the mission home.

This is what we found when we arrived. In true "Cozzens family tradition" everyone was working on a "project" on Christmas Eve. (My dad once had all the sons & son-in-laws pouring concrete ON Thanksgiving Day!) Andrew, Mark & Aersta (with no help from Nathan & Harrison who were making messes with the packing materials) decided to set up a large cabinet that the church had sent. They did a great job of it, although I totally forgot to take a picture of the finished project!

And, also keeping with another family tradition, Karen was making tea rings. My mom has done this for years and years. We drop them off to neighbors and friends. (Sorry to all of my current neighbors who haven't ever received these from me... there's always next year!) Karen is so great at keeping this tradition alive. She and I had a great time delivering these everywhere. We even took one to this adorable Catholic nun at the kids' school. She was so sweet.


Nathan fell in love with Stephanie's bunny while we were there. They will have to correct me, but I think his name is Chico, which means "chubby." Nathan snuggled with the bunny during the Christmas Eve festivities (and every other chance he got).

We had a nice Christmas Eve program where we watched a little church video, read from Luke and sang Christmas songs.

Aunt Karen made some yummy Tuscan Tomato soup for us before we went to bed.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care (ok... no chimney, but this was the closest thing we had).

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads. Mmmm... something tells me these kids are faking! And, they are in our bed! As soon as we finally got them up to their beds, we finished up wrapping things up (literally) and got to bed ourselves. A wonderful Christmas Eve!