What are the Italian Christmas traditions?

One of the most magical places to spend Christmas is undoubtedly Italy. And not only for the architectural beauties and for the food possible to find on the table as for the Italian Christmas traditions. Gather the family under the Christmas tree, spend the nights around a table to play cards, make the crib all together and after midnight finally open the gifts, hands with a slice of panettone or pandoro next to it. Every place in Italy has its own particular traditions, during this article for the blog of Teach me Italian we will try to discover the most characteristic of the whole country. The Christmas tree is a tradition certainly widespread all over the world, but in Italy we indulge in warm and enveloping colors and colder colors that can marry in a more natural way with nature itself. Next to the tree, in addition to the gifts to be unwrapped all together, the ancient tradition of the crib cannot be missing.

A tradition born during the Middle Ages, with the desire on the part of Catholics to be able to represent the moment of the birth of the baby Jesus. A custom that over time has spread to all Catholic countries, making the Italian tradition famous around the world.

There are many Italian celebrations linked to the Catholic tradition: one of the most famous is certainly that of the Epiphany, a date that is not always celebrated abroad. Just the Epiphany, in some areas of Italy, used to bring gifts on January 6, contravening the tradition of December 25. In northern Italy the gifts arrive in advance, with Saint Lucia who on December 13 thinks of bringing gifts instead of Santa Claus.

We have already told about the typical foods of this period, but we did not do it talking about pandoro and panettone, typical sweets of the Christmas period from north to south of the country. Panettone was born in the second half of 1400, at the court of Ludovico il Moro. Pandoro, on the other hand, has Veronese origins and was born at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A tradition, that of typical sweets, accompanied by dried fruit and chocolates for the endless bingo and card games that make this time of the year such a special one.