We waited in anticipation for our shipment of cakes, candies, and chocolates from Italy to be cleared at customs. Would it arrive on Thanksgiving, making us skip the big meal?  Or Black Friday, causing chaos and clutter?

But our boxes and boxes and boxes of joy would come through during the first snow of the season in Georgetown, and just as Teddy and Davis, my sons, flew in from sunny Los Angeles to help. A flurry of activity, and huge, fat flurries from the sky.

As we tore into the boxes and unpacked, the scents of Italian Christmas wafted out of the containers.  Panettone smells like Christmas. Gianduia smells like mid afternoons in December. And torrone smells like a diet in the New Year.

As we unpacked box after box of panettone, we remembered that this we have a good handful of flavors in stock, including chocolate, candied chestnut, and prosecco. New as well is the ability to order them though our website here. Loison makes their panettone with only real ingredients and no preservatives in the same way they have produced them for centuries, by hand in Venice. Their panettone does not taste like sugary bread, they way some American products do, but instead a rich and soft holiday treat.

But what I always fall for are the torrone. Years ago I toured the Sorelle Nurzia factory (you can find the old blog post here, and became obsessed.

To see exactly how they handcraft the torrone we have stocked in store see this excellent video (it is in Italian but stick through it for the “sensual” ending).

Though the unpacking was wet and cold, the reminders of beautiful Italian holidays past made opening up every cardboard box akin to tearing through gifts on Christmas Day. And what better gift then being able to bring a little bit of and Italian Natale to DC.