La Staggione Di Natale - The Christmas Season

Ciao a tutti,

This season has probably been the most busy of my life between my Filippo and the Chef Show, the Italian Christmas store on our www.FilippoandtheChef.com website, my personal performance schedule and parties, parties, parties.

How much I would love to post all the fun pictures we took at all the many Italian-American events during this season. I would also enjoy posting some of the cards I received, both in the mail, and electronically. I have also enjoyed people sending me pictures as well to be posted to the website. In time I will get those all up.

What I decided for this post is to put up a few highlights of some of the events, cards and pictures and hope that in the future I can put up more.

By the way, thanks to everyone that has written me thanking me for posting the "Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey" videos. I agree they are a lot of fun and you are welcome, it was my pleasure to find those and post them for all to enjoy. Actually, the thanks goes to the creative people who created the videos.

Here are two of my favorite pictures Above is a Christmas card that I got from Chef Richard of the Filippo and the Chef Show and his wonderful family. And this one is a picture sent to me by a fan, Rosie, of her 84 year old Nonna's Christmas Eve fried Baccala and Shrimp last year. Gotta love it. She promised me a better picture this year.

This is a Christmas card and a picture I received from one of my biggest fans, Deborah, and her Italian named, Italian-American grandchildren, Oreste and Francesca.

It is so fun to watch these young Italian-Americans grow and wonderful to be sharing our heritage with them. She is good about teaching then an Italian word or two and sharing her heritage as much as she can.

Beyond what she knows, then there is Filippo and the Chef.



I thought it would be special to put this on the blog this year. Every year for the past several years I have received a special gift from Lee Rizzuto, owner of the Conair Corporation.

Like Deborah, who's card is pictured above, who gives to Unicef with every card she send out, for the past few years Lee he has given a donation to the Cardinal Cushing Center on behalf of every one on his Christmas card list. With every card comes a dated Limited Edition "Mother Teresa Coin."

The front of the coin bears the her image and the back this saying "Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing." Mother Teresa.

Here is a picture of me at one of the Holiday gatherings this year with just a few Italian-Americans, Nic Romano on my left and Michael Bullo on my right, both of Villa Romano, the soon to be Italian Village, B&B and Vineyard that I will be sharing more about as it gets built. On my far right is Thomas Tamburello, a fellow Sicilian-American of Bullet Proof Entertainment.

To my left next to Nic is Marco Missinato, composer and founder of Pets Love Music, that which I will share more about in a subsequent post, and Isabella Cavilini, of Paramount Pictures, and a singer as well.

Speaking of Marco, here is him again at another holiday gathering at the home of John March. John is an A-List Guitartist and Mixing Engineer, among other things. You have undoubtedly heard his work since he has worked with the likes of Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul, Prince and Babyface.

As for this picture of us, I think I have this picture all figured out. I am trying to make sure that the Christmas tree gets in the picture for the blog, Marco is anxious to get the picture over with because he has his eye on a signorina he would rather be talking to, and John, well John is laughing and having a good time!

Though there were many other pictures taken, with other Italians, I had to put this one in because to me, this is the strength of America, for many reasons.

This is the Guitard family, and this picture to me represents a small slice of the spirit of America. In this picture are represented an Italian-American, a Hispanic-American, a French-Canadian-American and an American-American, but all of us American. I think you get my meaning.

Not to mention that these people are the salt of the earth, with the future of America on my right, an operating nurse from St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank at my left, and her husband, a Fireman of Burbank's finest, we can't go wrong.

At the home of Tess Caciatore, founder of the World Trust Foundation, her and I took this pictures during another event there, before she flew off to New York, or Chicago or somewhere to help feed 3 Million people in 33 Days as part of one of her organization's projects, Feed 333. You go Tess.

Below is a picture of actress Camille Saviola and I at yet another event. You have probably seen this lady on TV all over the place. Others recognize her from films and still others from her award winning performances on Broadway.

In any case, most of the roles I have seen her in are serious roles, but I am here to tell you, this lady is funny! Richard and I are trying to get her to join us when we take Filippo and the Chef to TV. This is me trying to butter her up.

Speaking of buttering up, these next two have the smoothest tongues on radio. Because they speak in Italian sometimes, not everyone gets the benefit of knowing exactly what they are saying but for those of you who can catch both the English and the Italian you would be laughing, that is if their show is anything like what our interviews turn out to be every time I am on the air with them.

I am talking about Nino and Rosa of "Ciao Italia," WRHU 88.7 FM Long Island. They can get you so comfortable you can talk about anything and it is a wonderful way to be. Kudos to both of you for your successful and fun and informative show. Thank you for having me on. Below is a picture they just sent me that we took when I was on their show promoting my concert at Hofstra.

Now let me see, did I get everything I wanted to get into this post, "something new, something blue, something borrowed, something Christmasy..."

I feel like I have decorated this post like a Christmas tree. All that is missing is the angel, and I know just the one.

Here is a card that a friend of mine made, yes made, by hand. The card is three dimensional and multi-layered using different media. She even drew the angel and colored it etc. I thought this would be the perfect way to top off this blog, thank you Carol for this beautiful card and angel.Buone Feste a tutti,

Filippo

P.S. Here is a video that I thought might be appropriate. Being that it is not yet quite Christmas, this is a video of a song called "Lettera a Babbo Natale" meaning a letter to Santa Clause. It is like an adult letter from a Milanese to Santa. I liked it because even if you don't understand the words the video is a montage of some typical Italian images as well as Christmas ones. (In Italian)