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The Feast of the Epiphany, Italian Style
January 4th, 2011 | 
Author: By Brook, Staff Writer, baby and sofia (@babyandsofia)
Instead of the traditional “Merry Christmas” (“Buon Natale”), Italians usually say “Happy Holidays,” (“Buone Feste”). Being a predominately Catholic country, this phrase is used to describe the two major Christian holidays of the season – Christmas and the Epiphany – as well as the New Year.
When it comes to the Christmas season, Italian children truly have happy holidays. In addition to Santa Claus visiting on Christmas Eve, all the kids get a treat on eve of the Feast of Epiphany. On the night of January 5th, La Befana visits every single child in Italy. Who is the La Befana, you ask? La Befana is an ugly witch that flies through Italy on her magical broomstick the night before the Epiphany. To prepare for her visit, each child hangs a stocking from the foot of his or her bed, in which La Befana leaves either candy or coal, depending if their behavior during the last year was naughty or nice. La Befana enters each home through a cracked bedroom window, so each child must leave their window open just a bit to make sure that she can leave her goodies.
The tradition is very similar to that of Santa Claus, but with a little twinge of scary. The arrival of La Befana is exciting for all Italian little ones, even when they fear her a little bit. After all, she is an old scary witch that creeps into their bedrooms while they sleep…
The Feast of the Epiphany is a very important and very celebrated holiday in Italy. Celebrating the arrival of Three Kings marks the official end of the holiday season for Italians. The next day, January 7th, Christmas trees come down and the holiday decor is packed away.
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Sounds cool!
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That’s very cool! I would love to spend Christmas in Italy just once in my lifetime!
I’m Catholic too, so our decorations don’t come down until after the Epiphany either. It was quite a shock to my husband that the tree stayed up til the 7th because he isn’t Catholic and he’d never seen that happen before.
I love having a nice, long holiday season! I just LOVE the Christmas holidays and leaving the decorations up through the 7th.
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[...] on Our Mommyhood, I talk a little about the Italian tradition of the Feast of the Epiphany and La Befana….Which we will celebrate in two [...]
[...] a scary old witch that leaves chocolate in the stockings of good children. (See my article on La Befana at Our Mommyhood.) Paolo had fun digging through the Befana stocking, even if Giuseppe is really one who was [...]