For a country that is home to the Pope, Italy has few Christmas traditions.
People always ask me what a typical Tuscan Christmas dinner is and I have to disappoint. Christmas dinner is a lot like normal dinner for Tuscans – antipasti, a pasta starter and maybe a roast for seconds.
Most Italians aren’t big dessert people and the Tuscans are no different. A slice of panforte, pandoro or panetone is more than enough and they’re perfectly happy to buy them from the supermarket. No one makes their own panetone.
My parents in law are bakers and to make a panetone from scratch took 2 days. You had to hang the baked product upside down after you took it out of the oven to cool or it would sink. They sold them for €12. Now you can buy a delicious panetone from the supermarket for €2.
That said, there are some traditions Tuscans and Maremmans cling too.
Tombola
Never really understood this one. Something about Christmas makes Maremmans think, ‘Bingo!’ Literally
You will come across hundreds of bingo games this season. They’re big events that involve the whole town. People over here take their bingo seriously. They play with the same seriousness James Bond played Poker in Casino Royale.
I once played tombola with my nonna (grandma) and a couple of other old biddies. Their jackpot was about AU$2, but they could get real nasty if you talked over the person announcing the numbers or if you had to go to the bathroom mid game.
During Maremman Christmas time, you can enter any of the local bingo games. The prize is usually a gift basket of local treats or a bottle of wine, and entry costs about €2. Just remember to yell, ‘tombola’ when you win!
Fiaccolate
If you come from Australia like me, or anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere for that matter, you tend to forget that Christmas is a winter celebration for most.
The fiaccolata tradition harks back to the pagan roots of Christmas celebrations and is a solution to the cold weather situation. A few key towns in the Maremma light a fiaccolata on 24 December. Petricci is my top pick.
As Christmas Day nears, locals light a huge pyre of oaks and chestnuts to ring in the festivities and stay warm while they socialise with their friends and neighbours. It’s a beautiful sight and the perfect excuse to stay outside enjoying the lights and chestnuts a while longer without catching a cold!
Mulled wine and chestnuts
It’s a winning pair. The Maremmans love their vin brulè and castagne. Neither are exclusively ours, but there’re served at pretty much every festival and event held during the Christmas season.
Roasted chestnuts are an acquired taste. They’re very similar to taro or parsnip – really starchy, but they are an absolute treat when they’ve been roasted over an open fire in a special pan, which looks a lot like the barrel they use to spin the numbers in in bingo.
Mulled wine at most festivals won’t cost you more than €2 a glass. It’s usually really sweet and all the alcohol has burned off, which is surprisingly how most people like it.
Gara di panforte
Maremman’s don’t just like to eat panforte, they also like to play with it.
Panforte is an Italian fruitcake stuffed with nuts and dried fruit and shaped like a disk. In this Christmas tradition, the cake is used a bit like a lawn bowl. The competition is held on a long table and whoever can roll their panforte closest to the edge without rolling it off the table wins.
You can catch a competition in Montemerano on Dec 21.
Cenone di Natale
For many Italians, Christmas Eve is more of a celebration than Christmas Day.
My grandmother always prepares a huge feast on Christmas Eve. It’s fish and seafood only, but it’s still absolutely delicious. This isn’t to say that Italians have lost touch with Christmas traditions or don’t understand the real meaning of the holiday.
I just think they want to spread out the celebrations. The Cenone di Natale or Christmas Eve party is traditionally spent with friends. At my parties, no one can ever resist opening at least one or two presents before midnight. I have been guilty of that a couple of years running!
Happy a safe and happy Christmas – with love from Maremma Tuscany!