We're leaving tomorrow for a week in Italy. Will spend the days around Christmas in a quaint valley in the Alps with a great ski resort closeby for the boy. There are chapels and old villages and farms on view and these are the most scenic mountains I've seen.
Over the pass is a slightly larger beautiful town dating from around yr 800, built around a flowing river bordered by shops and cafes, with enormous halls where royalty once danced the blues away.
From there I'll drive into Austria and Southern Germany, and come back to Iowa after another month, in time to see Winter begin to fade away into Spring.