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  • Italians are a fairly superstitious people, especially when the new year comes around. Here are some seasonal traditions, beliefs and superstitions from across the country, ranging from the most common, such as eating lentils and wearing red, to rather unusual ones. It is a terrible year because of the pandemic but certainly while respecting the rules the Italians will try to keep some traditions, the possible ones
  • Facts & Stories
    Roberta Cutillo(December 24, 2019)
    Italians are a fairly superstitious people, especially when the new year comes around. Here are some seasonal traditions, beliefs and superstitions from across the country, ranging from the most common, such as eating lentils and wearing red, to rather unusual ones.
  • With the Ferragosto holiday just two weeks away, Italians are relaxing into vacation mode on beaches and in the mountains, but also at home -- and indeed especially at home. As the research institute Dempolis statistics show, one out of five Italians is vacating, so to speak, at home, while at least half are going no farther afield than their own region. Resorts and even big city parks are jam packed, and not only with the multitude of foreign tourists who prefer holidaying in Italy to some of its more turbulent neighbors.
  • Life & People
    N.L.(December 20, 2014)
    Although in Italy the December holiday season is commonly called "Christmas Holidays", its traditions are far from being merely religious.Christian, pagan and lay themes are indeed strictly interwoven. This is visible even in the Presepe (Crèche), whose origins go back to St. Francis who staged the first living Nativity Scene back in 1223.
  • Dining in & out: Articles & Reviews
    Natasha Lardera(December 18, 2014)
    Every Italian region has its time-honored dishes that happen to be the real “stars” of the table. These are dishes that are synonymous of Christmas and every holiday season, year after year, they are prepared with care and respect for tradition.
  • Life & People
    Judith Harris(December 18, 2013)
    Naples is the quintessential Christmas town, and for many families its Nativity scenes - presepi - represent an accumulation of decades of collecting. The whole street of San Gregorio Armeno, in the heart of old Napoli, is a file of storefronts jammed with Nativity figures. But for 28 years another custom has developed: the wishes people of all ages attach to the 24-foot-tall fir tree known as the "Tree of Desires" in the elegant turn-of-the-century Galleria Umberto I. Their wishes are a slice of Neapolitan life.
  • Every Italian region has its time-honored dishes that happen to be the real “stars” of the table. These are dishes that are synonymous of Christmas and every holiday season, year after year, they are prepared with care and respect for tradition.