Italian Christmas Traditions

The Christmas season Italy starts early, with Advent, a four week religious time of prayer and ends on Jan6th. Eight days before Christmas a Novena is started. That is a series of prayers said over a nine day period. Little Christmas. Santa gets a break in Italy. Children get their gifts on Jan.6th from La Befana, the good witch. The story goes that when they were searching for the Christ Child, the wise men asked an old woman for directions and asked that she come along with them and she refused and to this day she roams the world looking for the Christ Child herself and must give out the gifts on the anniversary of the day the wise men finally arrived in the hope that the Christ Child will be in one of the homes and get the gifts she should have brought centuries ago.. Of course in the United States celebrating Italian Christmas Traditions can mean getting gifts on both Dec 25 and Jan 6th. It is a good idea to keep the old traditions going. There is one Italian Christmas Tradition that we have adopted and made our own and that is the one of the Creche. It started when St. Francis of Assisi had one built for him to say Christmas Mass in front of. It was so beautiful that soon everyone wanted one of their own. Some of these are literally works of art, worthy of a museum and as a matter of fact may museums will have one or more on display that are literally worth thousands of dollars.

One tradition Italy shares with many other countries is the Yule Log. We usually associate the Yule Log with England, mainly because of the influence of motion pictures, but it has been a tradition in Italy since pagan times . Actually, this like many of our Christmas traditions originated in Italy and were bought to other countries by missionaries. The legend of the Yule Log dictates that it must be left burning until New Years Day because the Virgin Mary will enter the homes of the poor at night when everyone is a sleep to warm the baby by the fire.

For 24 hours before Christmas Eve, no meat is eaten so it makes sense that Christmas Eve is the big meal of the Holiday. If you were to be invited to an Italian home for Christmas Eve you would be served some of these First of all there are Appetizers such as Clams Oregano followed by a salad and soup, maybe a Seafood Stew. Then main dish of fish, usually more than on kind . Eel is traditional but today any fish is used. Maybe something like this, Sole with Lemon and Butter Sauce Then there is the pasta course such as Christmas Eve Lasagne A favorite vegetable is Zucchini In Agrodolce (Sweet and Sour Zucchini) One thing everyone looks forward to on Christmas Eve after the feast is done, and that can take hours is The Urn of Fate, There are packages in the urn for everyone. Turns are taken until all the packages are gone, but, and here is where the fate part comes in, some of them are empty. Every one does get a gift though.

On Christmas day, the first order of business is going to Church and the meal consists of meat or chicken in place of fish.
There is one tradition that did not make it to the United States. In the rural areas, shepherds stroll the streets playing bagpipes and collect money to buy presents. Children also dress as shepherds and go from house to house playing shepherds pipes and asking for money.