We’ve put a little guide together that will help you celebrate your holiday Roman style. Each of the items shown above is crucial to celebrating an Italian holiday season. Working our way through from Christmas to Epiphany, here’s how to do as the Romans do:
1) Begin by putting up a nativity scene–the more elaborate the better.
Some believe that the tradition of creating Nativity scenes originated with St. Francis of Assisi in 1223, when he constructed a nativity scene out of straw in a cave in Greccio in central Italy and used the scene as the site of his Christmas Eve mass.
Carving figurines for Italian nativity scenes started in the 13th century and it’s an art that’s still popular, especially in Naples, where presepe aren’t limited to the usual cast of characters, but include such everyday figures as pizza-makers, watermelon-sellers, fish mongers, blacksmiths, and even Roman soldiers.
2) Buy yourself some eel.
As with most Italian holidays, eating is a very important part of Christmas. Traditionally, the Catholic Church asked Christmas Eve be kept as a day of fasting and abstinence (the Code of Canon Law eliminated this fast in 1983) and thus the traditional Christmas Eve meal in Rome is one of fish rather than meat. The prized Christmas Eve seafood treat is a capitone or eel. Shoppers in the know search for a big female eel and serve it roasted, baked, or fried (it’s also preferable to purchase it alive and and conveniently kill it in your own kitchen sink in order to insure freshness).
3) Get a red tablecloth.
That’s the traditional color for table linen at the Christmas Eve meal. We’re going with this one from Williams-Sonoma.
4) Break out the tombola set.
Tombola is a game like bingo that’s popular with all ages. In Italy, it’s traditionally played on Christmas eve before going to midnight mass. Sometimes tombola boards are simply numbered, but each number also has a nickname, thus boards are sometimes illustrated with images representing the nicknames–number 77, for example, is “legs of old women.”
5) Buy a panettone (or make one).
Panettone is a typical bread of Milan, usually prepared and enjoyed for Christmas and New Year. Distinctively fluffy, panettone usually contains candied orange, citron and lemon zest, as well as raisins, though many other variations are available such as plain or with chocolate . It is served in slices, vertically cut, accompanied with sweet hot beverages or a sweet wine, such as Asti or Moscato.
You can get a panettone at Williams-Sonoma too.
6) When New Year’s rolls around, put on some red underwear:
At New Year’s, the color red is of great importance is the color red, for it’s a symbol of life and prosperity, and therefore the luckiest of all colors. Across the Italian peninsula, New Year’s Eve tables are set with red decorations, red napkins, and red place markers. And though less immediately apparent, it’s worth knowing that many of those sitting around New Year’s Eve tables will be sporting red undergarments! Meant to insure love in the new year, red underwear and red lingerie adorn store windows in the week between Christmas and New Year’s.
Of course, Victoria’s Secret is just a starting point in the quest for the perfect red underwear. (Guys, you’ve got to get some too.)
7) Uncork the prosecco:
That’s what you should be drinking when the bell chimes midnight. If you need a sip or two even before midnight, we’re OK with that.
If you need some prosecco, click here.
8) Shoot off fireworks:
Nope, they’re not safe but everyone’s doing it. Fireworks light up Rome’s sky on New Year’s Eve as they’re set off from every rooftop, bridge, and piazza (this in addition to the city-sponsored firework extravaganza). But along with such explosive “Roman candles” it’s absolutely necessary that your New Year’s table be lit with candlelight, for the use of candles insures a bright future. And because the New Year’s holiday falls in the very chilliest and darkest days of winter, there’s yet another light-producing tradition that survives in Italy – the burning of a Yule log during the twelve long nights between Christmas and Epiphany.
We’re not telling you where to get fireworks; you’ll have to figure that out yourself.
9 & 10) Eat some lentils and zampone:
Since we are what we eat, the Italians also have traditional foods that are eaten on New Year’s Eve. Legend suggests that the eating of lentils will insure prosperity, perhaps because of their suggestive coin shape. In Rome, long and elaborate New Year’s meals end with a serving of lentils that is accompanied by boiled zampone (stuffed pig’s foot). It’s also a good practice to eat a pomegranate on New Year’s Eve as the hundreds of seeds inside the fruit means an association with fertility and abundance – a symbol that is often seen in Renaissance painting. Buy a zampone here and get some fabulous lentils from Castellucio here.
11) Be good for Befana:
After New Year’s, the next big holiday is Epiphany on January 6th. Epiphany, of course, is celebrated as the day that the Three Wise Men visited the Baby Jesus, bestowing upon him gifts such as frankincense, gold, and myrrh. Thus, Italians have traditionally given one another gifts on Epiphany rather than on Christmas Day (though that practice is changing).
Just as American children are taught that they must behave in order to insure a visit from Santa Claus on Christmas Day, Italian children have traditionally been told that they must comport themselves nicely in order that Befana, the grandmotherly house frau who failed to accompany the Wise Men to Bethlehem (click here to read her story), might distribute gifts at their house on the feast of Epiphany.
What does Befana bring to children who haven’t been good? She brings Carbone Dolce (sweet coal), a type of black candy that looks ominous but is sugary and sweet like rock candy and delights children by leaving teeth and tongue a frightening shade of black.
Sometimes Befana figures are really ugly but we’re digging these cute ones from 9 Mile Schoolhouse. Get yours now.
12) Make Rome a part of your life every single day in 2009:
You can do that with a Rome With A View calendar featuring photographs by Susan Sanders, of eCool Photo Friday fame. There are three different calendars to choose from. Get one now or get them all.
