Italian Christmas Traditions

Christmas is a delightful festival that is filled with hope and celebration. People come together and enjoy festival with friends and family. The entire family gets busy in preparing for the festival. Home is cleaned and decorated with evergreen wreaths, flowers, Christmas bells and lights. Christmas tree buying and decorating is an activity that every person enjoys. Christmas time is all about parties, feast, dance and music. The festival of Christmas has universal appeal. It is celebrated in different counties in different manners. The traditions observed differ from one nation to other. Traditions make the festival unique in celebration.

Italians celebrate Christmas for almost a month. The festive season starts from December 6 and ends on January 6. There are a lot of religious functions held during this period. The festival starts on December 6 with the celebration of St. Nicholas, a saint of shepherds. December 8 is celebrated as Immaculate Conception day in respect of Mother Mary. December 13 is celebrated as St. Lucy's day and people exchange gifts on this day. Christmas Eve is celebrated with a meatless dinner followed by attendance to the midnight mass. All Italians enjoy going to church and exchanging greetings with friends and extended family. Christmas day and New Year are celebrated with gusto. The festival ends with Feast of Epiphany that falls on January 6.

On the Christmas day, traditional Christmas feast is served that has a lot of delicacies. Fish, lentil soup, pork, sausages are served for the Christmas day meal. There are desserts in form of pasties, cakes with fresh fruits and dry fruits. Sweets are an important part of the Italian Christmas foods. The Christmas day is spent with family singing carols and listening to Christmas music. Italians decorate their homes with evergreen branches of tree, flowers and fruits. The best thing about Italian Christmas celebration is that commercialization has not entered their home to a large extent.

The Christmas tree is trying to make inroads in Italian homes these days. Traditionally, Italians have a tree of light made out of wooden frame that is several feet high. This tree has pyramid shape. The nativity scene is used as decoration below the tree. The tree is decorated with colored paper, cones, flowers, fruits and nuts. Candles too are used for decoration. A star or doll is kept at the top. This tree is called as Ceppo. The entire nation has stars, nativity scenes, music played during the Christmas season. Big cities like Rome, Vatican, Naples have hundreds of tourists to come to see the celebration of Christmas in form of performances, parades on street with fire works.

On Christmas Eve, small kids keep their shoes near the fireplace. On the Christmas morning, shoes are filled with Candies and small presents. A witch La Befana leaves these gifts for children. This is an anecdote popular in Italy. The gifts, food, family reunion and attending church are important traditions observed by Italians during Christmas.