Presentation about christmas in italy

Christmas in Italy

By Buonarroti school, Corsico - Milan

What happens before Christmas...

Hi!Now we'll tell you what happens before Christmas here.

We prepare our Christmas with decorations, that is lights in the town and in the shops. In Duomo Square there's a big Christmas tree with baubles, coloured lights, Christmas

ribbons and tinsels.We decorate the Naviglio canal with lights.

At home we prepare our own Christmas tree and a crib with many small statues.

Of course, we buy presents for our relatives and friends.

Naviglio canalDuomo square

School holidays...

School holidays in Italy start on 22nd December and finish on 9th January so they last two weeks.

We have to do a lot of Holiday homework but it is usually easy.

We usually go to the mountains and we usually ski (skiing is funny!!!)

On the last days at school we work and celebrate Christmas with pandoro and panettone and soft drinks

Every year with our religion teacher, we exchange presents

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

On Christmas Eve many families celebrate the event with a special dinner.

Other families prefer not to exaggerate because they want to eat more on the next day.

On the Christmas Eve dinner we usually eat light food like:

Tortellini in brodo: Tortellini is fresh pasta with meat inside.

Marinated Eel

Vegetables and pickles

After dinner many families go to church at midnight. In some cases they go back home and

open the presents, otherwise they wait until Christmas morning. On Christmas Day families

meet for a big dinner with:

A lot of starters

Ravioli

Roast meat with potatoes

After dinner we usually play different games. The most famous game is:tombola (a kind of bingo)

Typical sweets of Italian Christmas

At Christmas, Italian people usually eat a lot of sweets and cakes: the most famous “cakes” are “panettone” or

“pandoro.Our sweets are “torrone” and some chocolate.

Panettone is a Christmas pudding-shaped cake which is dry and light, filled with sultanas and candied fruit.

Pandoro is another Christmas cake, but it doesn't have candied fruit.

Torrone is an almond and honey sweet, it can be very hard or soft and covered with chocolate.

New Year’s EveOn New Year's Eve Italian people meet to say “Goodbye to the old Year and celebrate the arrival of th the new

Year”.At 8.00 p. m. a lot of people watch tv and listen to the

President's of the Republic's speech about the problems of the Country.

Later people meet to have parties and the families have a big dinner. In Italy we eat “cotechino” (hot pork

salami) with lentils. At midnight we watch TV for the count-down and open bottles of Champagne

(“Spumante, a kind of sparkling wine) and we drink it. After that we kiss beneath the mistletoe.

Twelfth Night We use to celebrate the Twelfth Night, to

remember when the Three Kingsbrought their presents to Jesus when he was born.

During this night, an old lady (befana) leaves stockings to children (but also to the adults ) full of

sweets, if they were good during the year, and coal if they were bad.

This is the Old Lady

These are the typical Epiphany stockings