The Holidays in Rome, Part I: Markets, Displays, The Vatican, Worshipping

RST is pleased to welcome back guest blogger Theresa Potenza (her last RST post was in 2018 on holidays in Rome and before that on the Etruscans in nearby Cerveteri  - she's a scholar of Etruscan history). Based in Rome, Potenza is an art historian, private tour guide, and freelance writer. To learn more about her private tours of Rome and read her travel and feature stories about Italy, check out: www.tourwiththeresa.com. (Also, her article here, on giving birth in Rome during Covid - an amazing tale [yes, they both got Covid] - and at the end of the post a photo of Theresa and her family.)

This is the first of two posts - since there is so much happening in Rome over the holidays. Part II, which will go up in a week or so, features "Listen" (music apart from the religious context, which is detailed below), "Taste" (special holiday restaurant meals), and "See" (exhibitions and light shows).

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There is no better place to visit than Rome during the holidays.  A city that is eternally enchanting becomes even more so during the magic of Christmastime. The holiday season traditionally begins in Italy with the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8 and ends with the feast of the Epiphany on January 6.  The Eternal City is the center of the action and provides many opportunities and occasions to celebrate. Whether you want to shop, eat, pray, or witness the great spectacles of holiday cheer, here is an updated list of what to do and where in Rome during winter 2023.

Holiday markets

Above, another photo of the Piazza Navona market
(photo at top of post also is from the market).

One of the city’s oldest Christmas traditions is the Mercatino della Befana in Piazza Navona.  The Baroque square with Bernini’s fountain has been a backdrop for holiday magic and events for hundreds of years. In the ancient times the area was a stadium for track and field competitions, and in the 17th century it was the stage for elaborate events for the Papal Pamphili family. Since about the 18th century when the legend of the Italian witch known as the befana became popular, the square has been a favorite destination for Roman families and tourists alike shopping for, among other things, candy “coal." According to Italian legend, the befana witch delivers presents or coal in stockings for children the night before the Epiphany. As the legend has it, the three Magi stopped the befana to ask for directions on their way to bring gifts to newborn Jesus. She apparently did not have directions and is still out wandering, visiting families. The story began in Rome and is still thriving in Italian households and especially in Piazza Navona. At the market you can enjoy a carousel ride, puppet shows, games, and stalls selling candy, hand-crafted befana, nativity sets and other crafts. The festival will be open until the day of Epiphany of January 6.

The largest Christmas festival in the city, Il Natale nel Mondo, will be held in Villa Borghese. Covering an area of 60,000 mq, it hosts everything you can dream of for Christmas. You will find original folklore shows, gospel concerts, a chocolate factory, an ice-skating rink, Santa’s house, a double-decker carousel, life-sized nativity scenes, reproductions of cities around the world, and food and wine stalls. What more could you ask for Christmas? https://christmasworld.net/, [Website in Italian; try your translator if you need it. Tickets may be purchased online through the website.]

The city hosts several small artisan markets throughout December in various locations where you can shop for anything from hand-made ornaments to specialty chocolates. Most of the markets run earlier in the month and finish by Christmas Eve, designed for those getting a head start on gift shopping. For some of the best local Italian food items, check out the Testaccio market until December 24. You can find the program for Rome’s markets on the city’s website,  https://www.comune.roma.it/web/it/notizia.page?contentId=NWS1114598 [Great information, again, in Italian.]

Christmas displays

This year, Rome’s Christmas tree will be displayed in Piazza del Popolo, instead of its usual location in Piazza Venezia. The tree comes from Como in northern Italy [a shout-out to Dianne's relatives' home province] and was lit today, December 8, a public holiday in Italy.

The Vatican Christmas tree will be lit and the nativity scene unveiled instead on December 9, following the Pope’s celebration of the Immaculate Conception on December 8.

The Vatican

As you can imagine, the Vatican makes a big deal out of Christmas, making it one of the most magical destinations to visit and celebrate in December. The decorations in St. Peter’s Square include an 80-foot silver fir tree from Cuneo in Northern Italy, decorated with edelweiss native to the Alps, and a life size nativity scene. Every year different artists from around the world are chosen for a creative nativity display. This year the nativity set will feature terracotta statues made by the Italian diocese in Rieti. The life-sized figures are designed to commemorate the 800-year anniversary of the first living nativity started by St. Francis in 1223 in the town of Greccio. The anniversary of the live nativity also corresponds with the celebration of Pope Francis’ 87th birthday in December. In the colonnade of St. Peter's Square there will be a display of 100 artistic nativity sets, an annual art exhibition known as 100 Presepe. [See Larry Litman's RST post about the presepe display in 2020.} 

Nativity scene at St. Peter's 2020. Photo by Larry Litman. 

Greccio 

It is also worth a day trip to the historic village of Greccio, just an hour outside Rome, for a creative collection of artistic nativity scenes, and to walk through history as it relates to the life of St. Francis.
https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/greccio-home-of-the-worlds-first-nativity-scene.html

Pray

To celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception and the official start of the holiday season in Rome, Pope Francis made a pilgrimage to the statue of the Virgin Mary at the Spanish Steps on December 8. On Christmas Eve, “midnight” mass will be held at 7:30pm inside St. Peter's Basilica, and the Pope will also greet the crowds on Christmas Day at noon for the “Urbi et Orbi” benediction. It is also possible to attend the Pope’s Te Deum prayers on New Year's Eve inside St. Peter's Basilica at 5pm.

The official Vatican website provides a calendar of holy celebrations by Pope Francis. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/events/year.dir.html/2023.html [Website in Italian].

For English language mass, you can reference the web pages for St. Patrick's Catholic American Parish, which will offer a family mass on Christmas Eve at 4:30pm, and the “midnight” mass at 7:30pm. https://stpatricksamericanrome.org/.

All Saints Anglican Church will have a Crib service at 5pm on Christmas Eve, and the “midnight” mass at 11:30pm. https://www.allsaintsrome.org/schedule.

St. Paul's Within the Walls church will host a grand Christmas concert on December 23rd with solo artists, choir and orchestra, featuring popular holiday music. https://www.operainroma.com/rome/?re-product-id=271221 [Website in both Italian and English].

St. Paul's Within the Walls 

Left, author Theresa Potenza and her family. Photo by Rome photographer   will.i.am.mbiena.

Part II next week!

New Year's Eve in Italy in the time of Covid - Even in lockdown, some traditions remain

It will be New Year's dinner for 2
in 2020.

RST welcomes guest writer Mary Jane Cryan, who, originally from the US (she even went to college at D’Youville in Buffalo), has lived in Italy for more than 50 years. Mary Jane is THE expert on all things Etruria, the fascinating area just north of Rome that includes the lively city of Viterbo and of Vetralla, where she lives. See her terrific website here: http://www.elegantetruria.com/. Besides contributing to virtually every important guidebook to Italy and the region, lecturing on cruise ships, and speaking widely, Mary Jane is a prolific writer and publisher. Her own books in the past few years have focused on Etruria; her bibliography is on her website.

We have featured her fine work in two prior posts: one on Etruria, here: https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2014/05/etruria-perfect-day-trip-from-rome-with.html

and another on a Borromini monastery (turned luxury hotel) in Rome here: https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-borromini-monastery-in-trastevere.html

Mary Jane brings her particular insight to this very unusual “Vigilia di Capodanno” – New Year’s Eve – and New Year's Day.:

2020 will be remembered for decades to come as the year to forget. The latest, rather strict, rules for the holiday weeks here in Italy are being enforced from December 21, 2020 to January 6, 2021.

The table set for a festive crowd in a prior year
and hopefully a year to come.

 This means travel between   individual regions and autonomous provinces is prohibited, except to return to one's primary legal residence. For this entire period, travel to second homes in other regions is prohibited, making Italians even more creative since this is the time when families generally gather together.

There was a rush on trains to get to family homes before the shut down. On 25 and 26 December and New Year’s, January 1^st, leaving one's municipality was and is totally prohibited, except for work, health, or other urgent reasons.

Italians are coping with the restrictions by using their creativity: restaurants offer take-away menus which include bottles of spumante with orders. Country house accommodations (agriturismi) and hotels are serving dinner to guests in their own rooms or apartments rather than in the main dining rooms.   

Until this year, New Year’s was celebrated by young people gathering in major piazzas throughout the peninsula, mega concerts were held in Rome, and there was all night dancing in night clubs. I remember fondly one New Year’s evening spent at a concert in Bologna’s magnificent Opera House which ended with a rousing “Radetzky’s March” and bottles of spumante being shared with members of the audience and the orchestra.

What has been - and what could be - a rousing opera at a full opera house.

And a concert in a crowded
church.

Those who stay home play bingo and other board games while waiting for the countdown to the New Year. Multi-course dinners, spumante and panettone are followed with the traditional dish of lentils, for good luck, at midnight. This year the number of guests around the dining table is drastically reduced due to restrictions on travel between towns and regions.

Surely traditions like fireworks, wearing red underwear and throwing old things out for the New Year’s will still happen throughout Italy, and, even though separated by rules and distances, families will be united in spirit and by modern technology to welcome in 2021.

 

                                                                        Mary Jane Cryan

 

Sausages by the fireplace - for 2.