Italy's Christmas season begins on December 8 (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, when the Christmas lights are officially turned on in most Italian cities and the cribs are installed in churches) and runs through January 6 (Epiphany, the Befana festival that is in many ways more important than Christmas itself in the Italian tradition). The 29-day window between these two dates produces one of the densest concentrations of Italian cultural and gastronomic tradition in the annual calendar, the presepe culture, the Christmas markets, the specific regional foods, the liturgical music programs in historic churches, and the particular quality of Italian winter light on stone buildings.
December is simultaneously one of Italy's most atmospheric months and one of its least crowded by international tourism standards, the Rome crowds thin dramatically in December compared to September or October. The Uffizi queue shrinks. The Venice calli are navigable without a battle. The cold (which ranges from genuinely cold in northern Italy to mild in the south) is offset by the aesthetic rewards: the nativity scenes installed in churches, the Christmas markets in medieval squares, the specific food associated with the season in each region.
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Italy's Best Christmas Experiences
Alto Adige/South Tyrol Christmas Markets
The Bolzano, Bressanone, Merano, and Trento Christmas markets are Italy's finest, operating from late November through December 24, organized in the specific Central European style that reflects the region's dual Italian-Austrian heritage. The Bolzano market (Piazza Walther) is the largest and most internationally known. The Bressanone market (the cathedral square, smaller, more intimate, less tourist-oriented) is the most atmospheric. The Alto Adige markets sell: hand-carved wooden Christmas objects (the South Tyrolean wood-carving tradition has been operating since the seventeenth century in the Grödnertal/Val Gardena), spiced wine (Glühwein/vin brulé), Zelten (the traditional South Tyrolean Christmas fruit bread), and local crafts of specific quality. The setting, the Alpine backdrop, the snow, the medieval squares, is the best in Italy for the Christmas market aesthetic.
Naples: San Gregorio Armeno and the Presepe
The street of San Gregorio Armeno in Naples's centro storico (historic center) is the most concentrated expression of the Neapolitan presepe tradition, the complex nativity scene with hundreds or thousands of individual figures that has been the defining Christmas decoration of Neapolitan homes since the baroque period. The workshops on Via San Gregorio Armeno produce figures year-round and open their displays for the Christmas season. The traditional figures (the shepherds, the Wise Men, the Holy Family) coexist with contemporary celebrity caricatures (football players, politicians, television personalities) in a specifically Neapolitan combination of the sacred and the irreverent. The street in December is overwhelmingly crowded. The quality of the craft work in the best workshops is extraordinary.
Q&A: Italy at Christmas
What Italian Christmas food should I eat?
By region: Rome, torrone (nougat), pangiallo (a Roman-Jewish honey and nut cake), cenci (fried pastry). Naples, struffoli (honey-coated fried dough balls), roccocò (hard spiced ring cookies), pastiera napoletana starts appearing (though traditionally Easter, some Roman families now make it at Christmas). Northern Italy, panettone (Milan, the dome-shaped sweet bread with candied fruit and raisins) and pandoro (Verona, the plain star-shaped sweet bread). Sicily, buccellato (a fig and nut pastry ring). The single most quintessentially Italian Christmas food: the Christmas Eve "Feast of the Seven Fishes" (cenone di magro) in southern Italian tradition, where the meal before midnight mass is meatless, seven seafood courses of varying complexity and ambition.
Internal Links
- Italian Festivals Calendar: December Detail
- Bolzano Beyond Christmas: The Ötzi Museum
- Italian Christmas Food: The Regional Traditions
- Naples at Christmas: Visiting San Gregorio Armeno Safely
- Italian December Weather: What to Pack
- La Scala Opening Night: December 7 in Milan
- Christmas in the Spa Towns: December Rates
