Christmas in Italy

Christmas in Italy

It is a nice experience to celebrate Christmas in Italy. While I was living in Verona, I had great time during the Christmas season. Every person starts to feel the climate of Christmas season from the early November with cold and Christmas wind. Both young and adults including children are waiting until finishing the Halloween to start Christmas shopping and decorating houses for Christmas.

All the supermarkets and shops decorates with Christmas decorations after finishing the Halloween week. From then on wards they are getting ready for Christmas and black Friday weekend. They offer huge discounts for black Friday in each shop. For me this is a perfect opportunity to buy Christmas gifts for my friends and relatives. Each year we play secret Santa which is one of the wonderful activity we do in each year.

Italians love Christmas and this is a festival which brings all of the family members together to have quality time after a busy year. In Italy, all of them get a Christmas vacation sometimes it can be a one or two week. But it depends on the work place. They all get to gather to the parents’ house and have lunch or dinner together as a family while exchanging gifts. I would say that most of the Italians are not religious but there are still lot of Italians who go to mass each Sunday. So, these people go to church on 24thof December at Christmas night and then start to celebrate the event.

Normally I and my friends go for Christmas shopping together and buy gifts and decorations to decorate the house. Christmas decorations are not that much expensive. We can find them for reasonable prices. Most of the time I prefer to make Christmas decorations by my own. So, I just buy the basic ingredients to make the Christmas decorations. I am glad to spend lot more time in collecting and decorating Christmas items.

The most favourite part of the season is backing Christmas cookies together with friends and visit Christmas markets in small cities. My favourite cookies are butter cookies but I bake ginger bread cookies, butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies.

As well as in the other European countries in Italy also we can see lot of Christmas markets. In the Verona Christmas market, I had the opportunity to taste delicious traditional pizza last year. There are lot more other foods and drinks in the Christmas market. At night, Verona city centre is so beautiful with huge Christmas trees and the lights along with other Christmas decorations. At night, it gets crowded. Last year when it comes to the last days of the Christmas, I had to wait so long to enter in to the market. But it was a nice experience since it gives the feeling of Christmas rush.

If you plan to go out to dine in the Christmas eve then you should book restaurant in advance since when it comes to the last days of the Christmas it is hard to find a good restaurant. Normally, I and my friends get together at my place on 24thof December and go to mass together. When we come back we exchange the gifts and cut the Christmas cake and celebrate that night with hot vine.

Next day, we go out for dinning with all the friends and relatives. This is the most wonderful season I ever love. I would be glad if there would be snow falls for the Christmas. But during last few years while I was celebrating Christmas in Verona city centre, I did not experience a snow fall on the Christmas day. No matter though there was not snow always the city is refreshing for Christmas season.

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