Dear Editor,
Although I’m not Christian, I love experiencing other people’s cultures or traditions. I am celebrating the holidays in Italy which I find to be a fascinating and rewarding experience as I am learning so much about its cultural practices, especially during this time of the year. I visited Italy several times before and each visit provides me with more knowledge. I am celebrating the holiday season in Rome and the surrounding area. The weather has been very mild as compared with the rest of Europe or North America. Rome is considered a top Italian city to visit during the Christmas holiday season and the place where the earliest celebration of Christmas is believed to have been held because of its association with Christianity, specifically Catholicism.
The Italians love this season so much that they commemorate it for an entire month, beginning on the evening of December 7 and ending on January 6, a far more important holiday than December 25. But the celebration of the season is not as impressive as in the Caribbean or NY in terms of glitter. There are countless foreigners in Rome and they also complain about the scarcity of bright flickering lights associated with the holidays. I celebrated Christmas in several European cities in recent years. Rome, Florence, Naples and other Italian cities are no comparison to Paris, Frankfurt, Köln, Bonn, Amsterdam, Nice, Monaco, etc. Italian cities are old, run-down and unkempt compared with others.
I was very surprised that Christmas in Italy is not very ‘Christmasy,’ certainly not like New York or Paris or Trinidad or even Guyana, as it lacks the glitter, glamour and music that I am so accustomed to in the Big Apple. Christmas in Italy is held to be sacred and there isn’t much by way of the exuberance, splendour and lavishness that characterizes, say, Manhattan. It is home to the Vatican, the Catholic faith, and many noteworthy churches. Virtually none of the churches is well decorated on the outside or even the inside. There are nativity scenes in every
church. There are numerous churches in Rome (600) and in each of the many cities and
almost all of them has nativity plays or decorations. And each major church has a stuffed figure as a tribute to the holy person for his or her contributions to the church and/or the community.
I was lucky to see the Pope as he delivered mass last Sunday at noon. He also said mass on Christmas Eve at midnight and again on Christmas Day at noon attracting huge crowds at all of his appearances. On Christmas Day, the Pope delivered his Christmas message at noon from the window of his apartment above the square as the popes before him did.
Christmas Mass in St Peter’s Square is not as brilliant or as awe inspiring as in some American cities. St Peter’s Square is not as ostentatious and glamorous as some other locations in the city or squares in other European cities. There is a relatively large Christmas tree in Saint Peter’s Square. A life-size nativity has also been constructed. But St Peter’s Square is nothing like the Rockefeller Center or the nearby Catholic church on Fifth Avenue.
I had expected to see Vatican City and St Peter’s Square, the home of Catholicism, very lit up with glamorous , beautiful trees. But it is simply decorated with an artificial tree and a few lights. The big hotels have more fanciful trees. Tree decorations in front of churches and even around the city are usually fairly simple, often just lights. The priests and the Pope don’t consider it as very holy to waste funds on an extravagant ambience as we do in North America or Trinidad or Guyana. Italy’s capital of Rome, unlike the Vatican, offers a wealth of Christmas festivities but official government buildings don’t have many decorations like those of Guyana or
Trinidad. Not even the Parliament Square or the Plaza in front of the President’s house sported decorated trees or colourful seasonal lights. The most prominent state buildings were not decorated at all, not even with lights ‒ nothing like the White House or the Congress or our city council or State House in Guyana or the Prime Minister’s residence in Trinidad.
There were also few red and green window dressings on buildings as compared with NY, and not many Santa Clauses in the streets or the shops.
Some shopping areas are ostentatiously decorated and even more brightly lit than parts of NY, but they are few and far between. The shopping district on the popular Viadel Corso (Regent Street or Fifth Ave or High Street or St Vincent Street) is lit up and jam packed with shoppers and pedestrians – the equivalent of the Champs-Élysées for those who have visited Paris. The streets are very crowded with shoppers with hardly any walking space and they are well lit up. But shopping is very expensive, at least twice the price of NewYork. Yet stores were still packed and people shopped.
For the holidays, Italians celebrate in much the same way as we do in Guyana or Trinidad or NY ‒ bring the family together for a feast. They have a family lunch and drink a lot of wine and celebrate almost the entire afternoon till midnight. The shopping districts and stores were closed for Christmas.
Some of Rome’s main streets have entertainment from roving bands of musicians (not masquerade bands) and there are vendors (immigrants) selling roasted chestnuts at every corner. There are also several mini-Christmas markets but not the likes of those seen in Köln, Germany, or in the south of the US. But the celebration is steeped in tradition and the people have their own way of enjoying the holiday season.
Happy holidays!
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram