The rains held till now

As we usually do at Don Bosco Hall, we hosted the Salesians from the Bay Area for Christmas dinner. Sr Mary Greenan engineered the five-course meal, while Fr Arthur Lenti prepared appetizers -- many, many, appetizers, Piedmontese style. Well, for those who know the Salesians in the Bay Area, there was nothing really different. The Don Bosco Hall community has been hosting the Christmas celebrations since 1974 (except for the three years when the house had been closed down by Rome between 1981 and 1984, but that is a different story).

We managed to keep cleaning as we prepared the meal, and with the help of Nick Reina from Richmond (who also lent us table cloths, plates and cutlery), we had almost everything cleared and cleaned by 9:00 last night. There were five loads of laundry to take care of, however, between table cloths, serviettes, kitchen towels and such: we finished off all this laundry this morning.

And now the days of rest. Three members of the community took off immediately after the dinner but the rest of us kept close to quarters today, since it has been stormy and cold. That's okay, there is a lot of Panettone and other delights to nurse us through the inclement weather. Now the 12 days of Christmas begin.