Italian Christmas Traditions

Learn about Italian Christmas traditions if you decide to spend your Christmas in Italy or you just want to know about the most cherished Italian customs.

8th of December Immacolata Concezione

13th of December Santa Lucia

25th of December Christmas

26th of December Santo Stefano

1st of January Capodanno

6th of january Epifania

Santa Lucia

Like in Northern Europe also in some regions of North Italy, Santa Lucia is in charge of bringing the presents.

Kids write a letter and leave food outside the window to attract Santa Lucia who, riding a donkey, will distribute presents to the well behaved children.

Vigilia

The vigilia is the night before Christmas. The dinner is supposed to be light, or di magro as preparation and purification for the following day.

Typically is based on fish instead of meat, it traditionally includes the capitone or eel.

Babbo Natale

Until the sixties Gesu’ Bambino or Baby Jesus was in charge of distributing the Christmas presents.

In recent years Italy conformed to the general icons and Babbo Natale, Santa Claus, became the Italian gift carrier.

New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve is the time for champagne and fire works.

If you decide to spend the festivities of Christmas in Italy, is a good idea to stay put at midnight.

There will be fireworks everywhere and someone might decide to comply with the ancient tradition of throwing out of the windows unwanted furnishings.

After midnight is mandatory (even if you already had a luscious meal) to eat lentils with cotechino or zampone.

The lentils represent money and the more you eat of them, the better. They will bring prosperity to the coming year.

The cotechino and zampone are a kind of cooked salame that just happens to be delicious with the lentils.

Befana

The Befana is a good witch that brings sweets to the children on the morning of the 6th of January, day of Epiphany. This day celebrates the visit of the Wise Men to Baby Jesus.

Around this day, you’ll see in the sweet shops lumps of black sugar.

This represents the coal the naughty kids will receive instead of the sweets.

Against any educational purpose, our children always loved this “fake” coal and wold try their best to receive it as a present.

Italian Christmas Bread

The Panettone was created in Milan but the tradition quickly spread all over the peninsula.

Also the Pandoro, a delicious cake from Verona, is often offered at the end of a traditional Christmas meal.

Panforte is another sweet of very ancient origin. It is made with candied fruits, nuts and spices.

The presepio is a nativity scene that is prepared in every house before Christmas.

Baby Jesus will be added to the cradle only after midnight of the 24th. The wise men will be moved every day a little bit until on the 6th of January they will reach Jesus at the hut.

This is a beloved Italian Christmas tradition and sometimes whole villages get involved in enacting a living nativity scene with the participation of all the villagers including sheep and animals.


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