The food, the nativity scenes and the festive days that stretch Christmas in Italy all the way to 6 January Christmas in Italy, or Natale, lasts far longer than a single day. The season begins on 8 December with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, when many families put up the tree and the nativity scene, and it carries on until La Befana arrives on 6 January. In between come long family meals, sweets that only appear in December and customs that change from one region to the next. This guide covers the best-loved Italian Christmas traditions, with a closer look at how Sicily marks the season.
What does Buon Natale mean?
Buon Natale is how Italians say Merry Christmas, pronounced bwon na-TAH-leh. Natale comes from the Latin natalis, meaning birth, so the word itself points to the birth of Christ. Through December you will also hear Buone Feste, meaning happy holidays, and plenty of Tanti Auguri, which means best wishes and fits almost any celebration. As New Year approaches, friends add Buon Anno to their greetings, and cards in shop windows across Italy carry all of these phrases side by side. When glasses go up, the toast is Cin Cin, usually over a spritz, a glass of prosecco or a round of Italian cocktails.
Setting up the presepio
The presepio, or nativity scene, sits at the heart of an Italian Christmas. St Francis of Assisi is credited with staging the first living nativity in the town of Greccio in 1223, and Italians have been building their own ever since. Some are a handful of figures on a shelf, while others fill a whole table with hills, houses, shepherds and running water. In Naples, Via San Gregorio Armeno is lined with craftspeople making and selling handmade nativity figures, and it draws crowds all through December. The baby Jesus is traditionally added at midnight on Christmas Eve.
What do Italians eat for Christmas Day lunch?
Christmas Eve is traditionally a fish dinner, so Christmas Day is when the meat and the rich pasta come out, and lunch on the 25th is where Italian Christmas food traditions are at their strongest. In Emilia-Romagna it often starts with cappelletti or tortellini, little parcels of fresh pasta floating in a rich capon broth, while in Piedmont the table gets agnolotti del plin, small pinched ravioli filled with roast meat. Romans are more likely to begin with a lasagne, and roast or braised meats follow almost everywhere, with plenty of vegetables, bread and Italian wine on the table alongside.
Panettone, pandoro and Christmas sweets
Every Italian Christmas table has panettone, the tall domed fruit bread from Milan, or pandoro, the golden star-shaped cake from Verona dusted with icing sugar. Families debate happily over which is better, and many homes end up buying both. Torrone, a chewy nougat packed with almonds or hazelnuts and closely tied to the city of Cremona, is passed round after the meal. Further south the sweets change, and in Naples the table fills with struffoli, little balls of fried dough piled high and glazed with honey and sprinkles.
Christmas in Sicily
Sicily brings its own sweets to the season. Buccellato is the island's classic Christmas cake, a ring of pastry filled with dried figs, almonds and orange peel, made with small variations from town to town and often given as a gift to wish someone prosperity for the year ahead. Smaller versions, called cuccidati, are baked as biscuits and stacked in tins for visitors. The fig filling goes back to the island's long history of growing figs and almonds, and many households still follow recipes handed down through the generations. Nima's Italian recipe book is full of family cooking in the same spirit, if you fancy trying some at home.
The zampognari
In the weeks before Christmas you may hear the zampogna, a traditional Italian bagpipe, in the streets of Rome and towns across the south. Zampognari are shepherd musicians from the mountains of Abruzzo and Molise who have long come down to the towns at Christmas, dressed in sheepskin cloaks, to play carols in pairs. One plays the zampogna and the other a small reed pipe called the ciaramella. Their tunes are one of the sounds of an Italian Christmas, played in piazzas and in front of nativity scenes.
What is Santo Stefano?
The 26th of December is Santo Stefano, or St Stephen's Day, and it is a public holiday across Italy. It has only been an official day off since 1949, and for most families it is a slower day spent visiting relatives, going for a walk and finishing the leftovers from Christmas lunch. Many towns put on living nativity scenes, concerts and markets over the holiday, and it is a popular day to go and see the presepi set up in churches and town squares.
Who is La Befana?
The season ends on 6 January with the Epiphany, when La Befana arrives. She is a kindly old witch who flies on a broomstick and fills children's stockings overnight, leaving sweets for those who have behaved and lumps of coal for the naughty ones. These days the coal is usually carbone dolce, a black sugar sweet made to look like the real thing. Legend says the Three Wise Men invited her to join their journey to Bethlehem, and she has been searching for the baby Jesus ever since.
A taste of an Italian Christmas in Soho
You can get a taste of Italy without leaving London. At 27 Old Compton Street, our small pasta bar is styled after 1960s Sicily, with fresh pasta made every day and cooked to order in the open kitchen. Come in from the cold this December for the pumpkin ravioli with sage butter and amaretto, the bucatini cacio e pepe or the black squid ink lobster ravioli, and finish with the sweet gnocchi filled with pistachio paste. The rest of the menu has plenty more for the table, and you can book a table for a December evening and come hungry. Buon Natale from all of us at 27.