In case you didn't know, I have a rather small family. No brothers or sisters. A limited number of cousins.
Italian families often have the tendency to be rather large. A few brothers here, 8 or 9 nieces there, about 20 or so aunts and uncles. And my boyfriend's family is no exception.
An 'intimate' family gathering of just the closest members of his family consists of at least 20 people. So you can't even imagine what anything along the lines of an 'extended' family gathering might be like. They all have to remember one name of one English girl. I on the other hand have to remember a great number of names, many of which I forget immediately after hearing them. It can get somewhat confusing/embarrassing.
Large families also mean large numbers of Christmas presents. On Saturday, myself and my man hit the shops and engaged in a spot of power purchasing. By this, I mean that we were quick, efficient and stuck to our budget. Ish. Even though we may have spent a little too much time/money in the toy shop looking at awesome board games and pressing the buttons on all sorts of...anyway. This power purchasing was necessary due to the sheer amount of presents we had to get. This is just a small portion of what we bought:
I've got to say though, that it was a lot of fun. Whizzing around the toy store, picking up monster trucks and baby rattles was rather enjoyable, and something I'm not accustomed to doing due to said small sized family. And afterwards, we rewarded ourselves with large amounts of pizza. A very successful evening indeed.
Although now I'm starting to understand why Italians almost always get their gifts wrapped at the store. The idea of wrapping presents always appeals to me, but I always end up in a sellotaped mess...
How's your Christmas shopping going?? :)