Italian Christmas: Vatican City

We spend Christmas Eve day visiting Vatican City.

Nothing like beginning a trip to the Vatican Museum with a little wrestling match.
I love this painting and I have never succeeded in finding any prints of it.

Outside of St. Peter's cathedral. After spending these several hours at Vatican City, Jaxon decided that not only is it the world's smallest country, but also its most boring. Although they did enjoy chasing pigeons.
After the Vatican, we headed south to our new destination, Sorrento.

We found this little pastry shop first thing and we knew that we were going to like it here. The workers gave the kids a little treat.

It wouldn't be Christmas Eve for me without acting out the Christmas story. Our cast: Claire as Mary (that required a lot of coaxing; she really wanted to be one of the animals), Jaxon as Joseph, Emily as the donkey, Jonas as a shepherd (he is very impressed by the angel of the Lord in this picture), me as innkeeper and angel of the Lord and Daniel as the narrator/videographer. Both the dress rehearsal and the performance were great successes.


Then we broke into our pastries a little bit. The one that looks like peanuts (it is actually deep fried little balls covered in honey) is a Christmas specialty from the region.

Jonas loved it the most.