Last year I spent my first Italian Christmas close to my ancestral roots in the south where I felt most comfortable...in Naples at the home of Giancarlo and with Maria's family who lives in Ischia. It was there in Lacco Ameno, Ischia, only months before, where I miraculously discovered the home and birthplace of my immigrating great grandparents, and the 150 year-old birth documents that enabled me to become a dual American/Italian citizen a few months later..
The Christmas culture of the south is unique and completely different than anywhere else in in Italy and it was specifically these southern traditions that were handed down through the generations to my family. It is a dramatic, vivid, elaborate tradition of physical, ornamental and spiritual expression, brought to emotionally elevated levels. The overall cultural differences between Northern and Southern Italy can be clearly discerned just through an observation of how Christmas is celebrated. As my family dispersed out of NYC over the last several years, these traditions were lost. I had craved the feeling of celebrating Christmas again the way I knew it. Last year going to Ischia and Naples I found it once again. It was a trip back into the Christmas's of my past and it evoked a million different nostalgias and memories of the traditions that were familiar to me as a child.
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This year I wanted to experience Christmas here in Florence, because this is where I have chosen to live my life in Italy. It started with the Vigilia on Christmas Eve, which I attended at the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiori . For 2 hours before midnight, the congregation stood silent in the enormous cathedral observing the solemn Gregorian Chanting of the bishop and his priests, as we all awaited the birth at Christ at Midnight. When midnight struck, the priests delivered a statue of the Christ child and stood it up in the front of the church, rather than laying Him down in his crib, which was curious. The church bells resounded and lasted for minutes..
As compared to the Vigilia in the south, it was more abstract and solemn. There was no presepie or ornamentation. It was emotionally subdued. Most everyone wore brown or black. The dampness of the basilica left me with a bone-piercing chill and the magnitude of its size made me feel like an observer rather than a participant. Rather than rubbing shoulders with the person crammed next to me in a wooden pew, we were separated by aluminum folding chairs which made me feel a little distant from the congregation.
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Midnight mass was solemn, recited in Latin and the Bishop's sermon was hard to understand because his voice echoed multiple times off the infinite walls, serving to muffle his original words. It was exhilirating and exhalting to experience Midnight Mass at the Duomo.
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It was raining as I left the Basilica at 1.30AM. I wrapped a plastic bag around my saddle and rode back to my apartment in the quiet stillness of Christmas morning. There was not a soul on the streets.
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Christmas Day On Christmas morning I awoke to the sound of bells chiming from every church in Florence. I looked out the window to see that all the snow had melted and it was a cloudy day in Florence. I packed up all the gifts and the Scudieri panettone that I had bought for Nicola's family, got on my bike and headed for the train station, where I boarded a train to Siena. The landscape looked different today, a little more surreal, wrapped in a cloudy mist that I could observe from the windows of the train as it transversed the Tuscan countryside.
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Awaiting me at the train station was Nicola, Cosimo and Costanza. We drove through the backroads of Siena until we came to an ancient isolated country villa which dated back to the 15th century. There we spent a typical Tuscan Christmas day, mostly in the kitchen, feasting on Nicoletta's lasagne, cinghiale and an abbondanza of vegetables and deserts to keep me warm for days to come. The children loved the gifts I brought and opened them with sparkling eyes. After dinner we took a long walk through the countryside until it got dark. We returned to the villa for Nicola's tiramisu and then I took the train back to Florence.
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It was a great Christmas.
