When you’ve worked hard all year and it’s finally time for a vacation, are you one who plans and saves for a really special trip that transports you out of the ordinary? If not, you ought to give  some thought to your next vacation holiday.  Too often, the year passes quickly, as we do our time at work with a vague, longing feeling for some time off to do just what we please. When vacation time finally arrives many of us find ourselves with insufficient funds to do more than hang out in town, or go to a nearby resort for a few days. Then you realize that your vacation is over, but you never really got away. For a true holiday vacation, you’ve got to put some distance between you and the same old.

One of the most beautiful destinations in the world is Italy. If you’ve never been to Italy, an Italian holiday is one you’ll never forget. If you set aside just $35 each week, in a year, you’ll have a tidy $1820. That is enough to fund a two week Italian holiday so memorable you may not want to come home.  Planning and researching your trip can be almost as much fun as the actual trip.  Your investigations into your upcoming Italian holiday will serve to inspire you to set aside that $35 as you learn about all there is to do and see in Italy.  Look into the history, language, food and culture. Once you get started, your enthusiasm for your Italian holiday will grow by leaps and bounds.

Italian people are spontaneous and warm. Italians know how to live, taking their time to enjoy the moment. An Italian holiday offers you a perspective on life you won’t find at home. Time takes on a new dimension in Italy.  Your Italian holiday will show you a different pace, with meal time a long, drawn out affair, full of good conversation, laughter and heavenly food. Traveling by train is an adventure and the Italian countryside brings peace to your soul with it’s varied and breathtaking scenery. Every city and village offers spectacular insights on history.

An Italian holiday is like taking a trip back in time, wandering the ancient streets of Florence, Siena or Rome. Thousands of years of history and humanity abide in Italy and you can’t help but let some of it flow over and into you. Your soul’s voice cannot resist the treasures displayed at the Uffizi in Florence or the Vatican in Rome.

You can make your Italian holiday anything you want it to be. Touring by car or train, you can catch the breadth and breath of the culture in snapshot format. You might choose to explore Rome for your entire two weeks, never running out of things to do and see.  Bring your camera, appetite and love of life along with you on your Italian holiday. You won’t be disappointed. You’re sure to return someday again – perhaps next year?

In a safely determined pre-Christmas shopping jaunt.  Which we intentionally chose far in advance, to avoid the manic and the panic of people pushing and knocking us over with handbags and Christmas wrap tubes.  My friend and I drove from destination to destination with pending anxiety.  We were sure at any minute the shockingly sparse highway would morph into the real December nightmare and cars would be honking and sleet would be slamming with people fingering and gesturing and scowling.

At some point in our speculating why an even non-Christmas week route would normally be packed with drivers.  We started talking about who Santa Claus is, where he came from, how convenient that he appeared at the same time as the Christ child’s birth celebrations.  Though Christ is really not a December baby, more like February or March and the Greenwich time changes have seen to that erroneous dating.  It’s odd how much trivia we know, but then cannot recall it when we need to.  So I did a little searching, to remind us of the origins of the patron saint of Christmas or whoever he first was, other than one who secretly left goodies in wooden shoes.

All western cultures know of Saint Nicholas and this is the reason I could not recall great details, is that he was a beneficent man who left gifts in secret for the people of 4th-century Byzantine Lycia (Turkey).  His name was Nicholas of Myra, a clergyman of Lycia.  But as he was a saint, patron to merchants, seamen, archers, children, students, prostitutes, pharmacists, lawyers, pawnbrokers and prisoners.  His name became known as Saint Nicholas, then St. Nick.  As well as the name that translated, centuries later, to Nickolaus in Germany; Sinterclaas in Flanders/the Netherlands; and finally, Santa Claus in the western worlds.

But the St. Nicholas of Lycia is not to be confused with Saint Nicholas of Sion, nor should he be feared, beyond his power, with his list to define good and bad boys and girls, for his associations with Knecht Ruprecht.  Ruprecht is the fabled accompanier of St. Nick in Germany, who would eat bad children.  Nor should Saint Nicholas, or Santa Claus be forgotten as a saint though his original eve, celebrated in early December.  Martin Luther replaced the events with those associated with Christ Child respects on Christmas eve, in favor of a Catholic mindset.  Much to the chagrin of the Protestants, who were and still often are honoring their revered Saint Nicholas.  No wonder my friend and I were confused.  Once again, we are left to our own religions and choices, left to honor whomever we honor on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or any other sacred time of the year.