The holiday season has been in full swing for a few weeks and you can
already sense that this year is different. In spite of our financial woes
everyone in charge is telling us to spend, spend, spend in an effort to boost
the sad economic reality. Yet the media tells us that no one is spending…and is
it just us, or have the holiday party invites taken a dive as well? Stores are
already having sales (a true Italian Christmas miracle if we’ve ever seen one)
and parents are already preparing their kids for a ‘leaner’ visit from Babbo
Natale.
Taking the holiday festivities cancellations to a new level, the
Croatian government has apparently banned Christmas and New Year’s parties in
public sector offices because of the global financial crisis. State-run firms
and organisations have also been told not to buy Christmas presents in an
effort to ‘be serious’ about the global meltdown.
We at The Florentine would like to propose an alternative to the
negativity-you won’t have as many presents under the tree, so what? You have
the whole city-all decked out in holiday glory-waiting at your feet. Go ice
skating, take in an independent film or two, eat a slice of panettone, wander
aimlessly through a holiday market, visit each and every one of Florence’s
nativity scenes, bundle up and enjoy an outdoor concert…the options are
limitless.
So don’t let the half-priced holidays get you down: make it a full-on,
100 percent, frugal-on-the-gifts, but
lots of love in your heart holiday season.