Easter

Easter is a religious celebration. It is the most important Christian festivity because it celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If you don’t know what we are talking about, well, you should know that christians believe in Christ as God’s son. At the age of 33 Christ decided to sacrifice himself to save the population. After 3 days he resurrected. It was a great event, so christians decided to celebrate it.    

The day of recurrence of this event is not the same every year, it corresponds to the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon after the spring equinox.

Our Easter holidays take usually about 4 or 5 days: from the Thursday before to the Monday after.

Easter is a National Festivity so we don’t go to school and lots of adults don’t go to work in this period.

There are actually a lot of traditions in Italy.

Italians’ traditions are different from family to family.

For example some families always travel, others spend time with all their relatives, others invite friends and organize games to do together, etc...

However, we are sure that there is a tradition that everyone respect: having a big lunch and eating lots of sweets such as “Colomba”, “Pastiera”, “Cassata”, “Easter Pizza”, “Casadina” and so on...

We are from Naples, so a very tipical Easter sweet for us is the Pastiera.

If you walk through Naples’ streets during this period you will surely smell the aromas of orange flowers.

From the Middle Age there is the habit of donating colourful eggs simbolizing the beginning of a new life. Now the habit has changed a bit: people donate chocolate eggs.            

Sometimes adults hyde their children’s eggs so they have to find them and then they can eat them: in this way children can have fun.

There is also the habit of eating lamb, rabbit, potatoes and handmade pasta.                              

There are religious traditions too, such as the “all night vigil” and the “Way of the Cross”.      

We love Easter in particular because of how it is celebrated, so, if you want to come here and have fun with us, you’ll be welcome.

Epiphany

On the 6th of January in Italy we celebrate the Epiphany. We celebrate it because in Christian religion, more then 2000 years ago kings magi brought to Jesus 3 presents: gold, incense and myrrh: Because a baby recived some presents, we believe that the night between the 5th and the 6th of January, an old woman, a witch, brings to all the children some sweets if that year they were good children. Otherwise if they were bad

chidren she brings them coal. We call this witch befana.

CHRISTMAS

In Italy, we celebrate Christmas on 25th December, the day when Jesus was born. In this day our families get together, cook lot of food, specially fish, and We exchange presents. We usually play Tombola, a typical neapolitan game. In this period people buy special Christmas sweets like Panettone

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We decorate our houses with a Christmas Tree and Presepe. Christmas is a special day because we are happy to stay with our family and friends.

The celebration of the Italian Republic

The celebration of the Italian Republic takes place on June 2nd. On June 2, 1946 there was a referendum where the Italians were called to choose between monarchy and republic. The Republic won and King Umberto II of Savoy was forced into exile. From January 1, 1948, the Constitution of the Republic came into force and the descendants of the Savoy were forbidden to enter Italy until 2002. The vote which took place in 1946 saw the following results 12.717.923 votes for the Republic and 10.719.284 for the monarchy. the ceremonial of the event takes place in Rome on June 2nd each year. the president of the Italian Republic places a laurel wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the "Altare della Patria", then the demonstration continues with a military parade along the Via dei Fori Imperiali.

Carnival in Naples

The Neapolitans at Carnival always eat “Chiacchiere” and Sanguinaccio. The latter is a dark chocolate cream that, in antiquity, was prepared by adding pork blood. But don’t worry, today this tradition has fallen into disuse, and the Sanguinaccio is made of 100% chocolate!

It is the mask of Naples, one of the most popular and ancient.
 Pulcinella is lazy, ironic, opportunistic, shameless and chatty. He has an insatiable voracity and is always looking for food.
For a dish of macaroni is willing to do anything: stealing, lying, cheating and taking clubbing.

But in the week of Carnival you have to be very careful even to the jokes of the Neapolitan "scugnizzi". The rule is "at Carnival every joke is allowed” and the children have fun making original jokes to adults.