Seen from Italy

Some Italian Christmas traditions

A typical Christmas-time cake all around Italy that originates in the northern Italian town of Milan (the county seat of Lombardy, the Italian region where we live) is panettone.

Panettone (literally meaning "big loaf") is a tall, dome-shaped cake risen with yeast. It has a somewhat light and airy texture but a rich and buttery taste, and it's not very sweet. 

It traditionally contains raisins and candied fruit (orange and citron zest) and is topped with crisp pearl sugar. More modern versions might substitute the candied fruit with chocolate chips. 

We do not make panettone at home, (it’s too complicated!), but we usually buy it from a local baker or in a supermarket.

 

 

At Christmas, we decorate Christmas trees and we usually make nativity scenes.

 

 

Merry Christmas from Greece!!

 

A couple of days before Christmas break, we had the chance to meet through Skype our Spanish and Italian friends, sing, dance and talk about our traditions! We were excited to communicate and share the christmas spirit with them!! We really can't wait for our next videoconference!! 

 

 

Thank you all for this Christmas gift, dear friends!

 

Greek Christmas and New Year's traditions:

• Merry Christmas in greek is "Kala Hristouyenna!" (Καλά Χριστούγεννα!).
• Apart from the Christmas trees, we sometimes like to decorate a small wooden sailing ship.

 

• Especially in our village, Agia Paraskevi, on Christmas we eat "selinato" (a meat soup with celery) and some traditional sweets: melomakarona, kourabiedes and platsenta.

 

• Children go from house to house and sing the carols ("kalanda") on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and on the Eve of the Epiphany.
• We exchange gifts on New Year's Eve and eat "vasilopita", a kind of a sweet cake.
• During the 12 days of Christmas, we hung a pomegranate above our front doors and on the first day of the New Year we break it, so it'll bring us luck for the year to come.

 

FROM SPAIN