Celebrating Winter Holidays Including the Italian Legend of La Befana

This Winter, people celebrate some of the Winter Holidays starting with:

Dec 20-28th  Hanukkah

Dec 25th Christmas Day

Dec 26-Jan 1 Kwanzaa

Jan 6th   Little Christmas aka The Epiphany

Let’s explore each of these holidays a little bit…

La Befana Image courtesy of www.selectitaly.com  Select Italy Newsletter  Vol II, No 12 Dec. 2001

Dec 20th is the start of Hanukkah this year, with the entire “Festival of Lights” lasting for 8 days.

Hanukkah from the Hebrew is also “Romanized” to be spelled or misspelled Chanukah, Chanukkah or Chanuka, the Hebrew “Festival of Lights” lasting eight days as the Jewish holiday period commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple (Second Temple) in Jerusalem in Israel at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE per Wikipedia.  I was told another potential spelling is Hannukah. It is hard to know which spelling to use when one is not Jewish!

We had planned for a Guest Blog contributor to be posting about that holiday celebration this year, but a last minute vacation opportunity this month has lured that potential contributor away, and there just wasn’t enough time to secure a pinch hitter in her absence.

2012 NOTE:  We have removed our references to 2011 documents that were available via Shoprite Stores; Shoprite changed out their offerings for winter 2012 and now has the following documents available on the celebration of Chanuka, Christmas, and Kwanzaa.

You can learn more about Jewish Holiday Customs including Chanukah on the www. You can learn more about Kwanzaa at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History which notes their celebration of Kwanzaa is December 26 – January 1.

At this time, we are not qualified to discuss Chanukah or Kwanzaa holiday celebrations in depth, but it can be useful to know something about them when you and your family may interact with others who hold these celebrations near and dear to their hearts during their winter holiday season.

Note:  Regardless of which holiday(s) you may celebrate, there are many resources on the www with various modified holiday recipes. For example, a modified Low-Fat Latkes recipe or a recipe for Sweet Potato and Pear Latkes can be found courtesy of the American Institute for Cancer Research Holiday Recipes site . Or another example from that same site would be Chocolate Dipped Fruit. The aroma of Carrots and Dried Apricots and Cinnamon which also has a hint of ginger is also enticing, as is Spinach and Clementine Salad and so many other recipes at that site .

We are familiar with both Christmas and Little Christmas aka The Epiphany and we would like to share a little something about traditions associated with the season that have been passed down in our family to us.

Many Italian Americans are Christians and celebrate December 25th as the birthday of the Christ child, Jesus, so it is a holy day of religious celebration and families typically attend either Midnight Mass starting on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day or go to mass during the daylight hours of Christmas Day.

Our Italian ancestors celebrated Christmas Eve as a night of anticipation of the upcoming birth of the Christ child and also as a night of a secular gift exchange and traditionally one gift could be opened on that night before Christmas Day. The “Christmas” stockings would be filled with fruits of the season including dried fruits (such as a string of dried figs, or a selection of stuffed dates) and then also nuts (with bags of roasted chestnuts being a favorite in years gone by).

Christmas Day was a time to be with family. Since family was visiting during meal times, food centered celebrations were the norm and lasted throughout the day. Some special dishes were made in advance and others were made the very day of the Holiday and enjoyed by all during the Christmas Day celebration.

Just as Americans “celebrate” December 25th as a gift exchange day, our family had to adapt to that. Italians have Babbo Natale as an equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon Father Christmas aka American “Santa Claus” per se.

Although we had some gifts we could open on Christmas Day, nonetheless, we always saved other gifts to be opened on Little Christmas, so it felt as if we had two Holiday celebrations. We didn’t take the “Christmas Tree” down until after Little Christmas.

Good little Italian girls and good little Italian boys eagerly await the eve of Jan 5th or day of Jan 6th to find out what La Befana has chosen to bestow upon them in honor of the Christ child of yore.

Major exchanging of gifts waited until Little Christmas aka The Epiphany because of the Legend of La Befana, otherwise known as the Italian “Good Witch” in history.

The following description of “La Befana” is courtesy of the old site of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute  and is totally attributable to that source.  The Institute has a newer site with other information concerning Italian American culture.

The legend of La Befana is shared with you in a spirit of Peace, Happiness and Joy in this Season of Light.  It also might help to explain why Italian American households love Holiday Baking and why so much of it typically goes on throughout the month of December leading right up to Christmas Day.

“The Legend of La Befana:

This story takes place at the time of the birth of Baby Jesus, the Christ Child.  La Befana is an old woman who lives in a house in the hills of Italy. She once had a husband and child, but now lives alone. Befana spends her days sweeping and baking.

One night, Befana notices a bright light in the sky, she thinks nothing of it and goes back to her work of sweeping and baking.

Later, a glorious caravan led by Three Wise Men stop and ask Befana for directions to Bethlehem and invite Befana to join them in their search for the Christ Child. But Befana is too busy and knows nothing of this far-away place nor the birth of a special baby.

After the caravan disappeared over the hills, Befana thought of how much she missed her child who sadly died at a very young age.  She changed her mind and wanted to visit this special child, because she loves children very much. So she placed some baked goods and gifts for the child in a sack, took her broom to help the new mother clean and raced out after the caravan in search of the Baby Jesus.

Befana soon was lost. And just as she tired, angels appeared from the bright light, the magic star, in the sky to give flight to Befana on her broom – after all this was a night of miracles. She searched and searched for the Baby Jesus.

Befana still searches for the Baby Jesus, even today, even after all these centuries.

And so, every year on the eve of the Epiphany, whenever Befana comes to a house where there is a child, she drops in to see if it might be the child she seeks.   It never is, but Befana leaves a gift anyway.

For Befana has come to realize, over the years, that her searching is not in vain, that in a way the Christ Child “can be found in all children.”