Christmas in Italy is all about family. No businesses open at all, restaurants included, and everyone gets together to celebrate in the home. The beauty of having this apartment means we also get to celebrate like the rest of Italy with our own little family here.

Reg particularly enjoyed the preparations as he got to hang out in his favourite parts of town - the Lorenzo food markets and the supermarkets. We joined the throngs of locals animatedly purchasing meat and vegetables for Christmas dinner and a delicious array of fruits, nuts, cheeses and cold meats for our snacking needs, not forgetting the essential sweet side of things like Panettone, Pan Forte and a lovely apple strudel for dessert. Our shopping Italian is getting quite impressive and we are now beyond just pointing, nodding and grunting. Capisco?

A grog run to the supermarket was also required and produced a hearty, "Mama mia!" from the checkout chick as we unloaded our trolley. The prices here are amazing - too good to be true - so we were like kids in a lolly shop. I mean to say, Moët for €23, Veuve Clicquot for €25, big bottles of beer for €1, Scotch for €6, Mateus Rose for €3 ... need I go on? We loaded our backpacks for the short trip home and as the fridge was full of food, put the beer and wine in the outdoor chiller (our patio) which serves us just as well.

Shopping done, we decided to eat lunch in a little osteria which is alway packed with locals just around the corner from our apartment. If you don't get there by midday, you don't get in because it is so popular. We were lucky to get on the end of one of the few long shared tables left. The atmosphere was full of noise and bustle as waiters and waitresses rattled off what was on the menu, took orders and served meals from the counter of the kitchen which was pretty much a part of the dining area. It was tiny with rough wooden tables and chairs, and no adornment of any kind, but it was full of atmosphere. The food on the menu was old fashioned, home cooked fare like hearty soups, tripe, rabbit, cannelloni, spaghetti, osso buco, and so on. After placing a carafe of rosé and several chunks of thick crusty bread on the table the waitress took our orders. We proceeded to have a fine meal begun with a vegetable soup so thick that the spoon could stand up in it. The boys had rabbit, Molly had chicken and I had cannelloni. The wine was good and we now understood why the place is always so full. It was a great Christmas Eve lunch which we completed with a delicious cassata gelato from our local gelato shop in the next street. We love where our apartment is located.

Christmas Day was lovely, relaxed and leisurely, as we didn't need to go off anywhere. Our gifts were placed under our creative Christmas tree constructed out of the Moët boxes and tinsel. A finer tree you never did see. We exchanged gifts of food and fun items like leaning tower shaped pasta, solar powered rocking gondolas and red underwear which is supposed to be worn on New Year's Eve to bring good luck for the year ahead. Much laughter later we toasted with bubbles, grazed on a fine spread of Italian delicacies and listened to Italian hit songs from a CD which was one of the Christmas gifts received.

The morning was long and leisurely and we left Reg guarding the roasting meats as we took a stroll through the streets of a quiet Florence before lunch. The baby Jesus was now in the crib in the nativity scene outside the Duomo and many people were milling around the piazza enjoying the relatively warm day and Christmas spirit. No shops were open, but the streets were surprisingly full of people out walking. We headed down to the Arno, past outdoor David and along the river for a while before heading home.

After a delicious home cooked lunch of baked Mediterranean vegetables, stuffed chicken and rolled pork stuffed with prunes and apricots, we lazed the afternoon away on the lounge, reading, chatting, napping and Skype-ing home. Dinner was our dessert which we couldn't fit in at lunch. Doing so much lazing around is really tiring so any early night was had by all. It really was a lovely day. Buon Natele everyone.