Christmas in Italy - a short story & photos

The good thing about having friends in exotic destinations is that you can travel there off-season for a completely different experience from when you’d been in the summer.

Such was my second trip to Sorrento on the Amalfi coast, a small tourist trap village under the umbrella of Naples in the Campania region. There to spend Christmas with my life long friend and world travelling partner Vanessa, it’d become, all these years later, a special trip indeed, for it was the last time I would ever see her mother, Pat, whom we always called Harelda, a good friend, and always up for a laugh.

I say off-season, but obviously only for the rest of Europe, Italians flocking to the place in the winter offering a more authentic experience. But still, mostly the older generation, the main difference being that elaborate hairdos, expensive jewellery and fur coats replaced baseball hats, Bermuda shorts and tracksuits. The sun drenched patios of the countless cafes vying for space around the square and off up into its sleeves I’d known from my last visit, were now precarious mini ice rinks catering only to a stray dog well practised at looking pathetic as it sat outside, sniffing, waiting for scraps. And it got them too, a big fat hybrid of the 57 varieties well looked after by the locals. A dog I’d seen before in the summer, lazily lying on its well-chosen patch under a church window for added sympathy factor and where it wasn’t in the way of lollygagging feet perusing limoncello stores. Yes, poised for best ‘aw’ factor despite the fact that the mutt apparently had alopecia areata and what hair it did have left might’ve been home to any number of new species of fleas, the source of the mysterious red beetle, maybe, the one that continues to devastate the palm trees along the coast that looked as if they too might be follicle challenged. Everyone knew her name though, and beloved was she, and even if the locals didn’t want to take her home, they watched out for her; providing her with blankets and water, everything she needed, the odd pat on the head here and there that made the litters of cats too nervous to come from the back areas of the apartment complexes to anywhere near, green eyed with jealousy, relying on some leftover pasta being thrown over the balcony.

Natale (Italian for Christmas, which on hearing initially; people saying it to everyone, made me think so many there were called Natalie, even the men... and why not, after all the fad of having their eyebrows shaped made them all look like women, or at least drag queens) is a completely different experience in Italy than in North America, and in my experience, the UK too; a lack of crass commercialism that threatens to swallow up and secularize the holiday. And I have to say that it appealed to my old fashioned sensibilities; truly feeling that I’d travelled back in time, for despite the iciness that could be cut with a knife in the air itself, chipped from your nose even, an orchestra, complete with trumpets and violins, had set up a makeshift stage in the square, to play classic Christmas hymns that, to my sensibilities, made it seem as if I'd been transported off to the Victorian era, what with it snowing too as if by cue of the conductor’s baton. And dressed for the part too, in long coats and hats and scarves, their noses not red but blue with the cold, and at which they really didn't seem to mind. No, very different there from what I’d been used to, children, instead of asking for presents, writing letters to their parents to tell them how much they love them, usually presented under the father’s plate and read out after Christmas Eve dinner.

This was my first taste of the Italian festive holiday customs; Vanessa’s boyfriend Gianluca had written us each a heartfelt Christmas card; a pouring out of emotion telling us all how happy he was that we’ve come into his life. And even if the other custom on La Vigilia di Natale (Christmas Eve) is to only eat seafood, something that my taste buds just cannot for the life of them contend with, it was a very touching moment that saw both Vanessa and I smiling at each other with our eyes; our British sensibilities under-educated as of then, for we just didn’t do things like that; the nearest we got was by sending cards such as Santa hanging from a noose over a bonfire of wrapped presents and that said, ‘Hang Christmas’ on it, with a hastily written, ‘have a good one’ inside to personalize it. But a lovely tradition, I thought, following suit, so touching and meaningful, and so I wrote a long note back inside my card to this relative stranger, expressing just how I felt. I wonder how contrived that might have been back then, but in my defence, I could most definitely write a much longer, much sincerer one today, Godfather to their child as I am now. Strangely enough though, I think with Vanessa’s influence, it’s not only Gianluca’s English that’s changed, for, now I come to think about it, I’ve never received such a personalized card since, and felt a bit silly that one year when I sent one such as that, which, I’m not sure if I imagined now, was looked at by him as I did that very first one that he gave to me, as if to say, ‘what the hell is this sentimental claptrap?’

Everywhere you look in Campania, there's nativity scenes of small villages tucked into the cliff and roadsides, all lit up. Not how you might expect, but depictions of their villages and towns as they are in real life. Now I can’t help but think if these were where I live in Vancouver, there’d be nothing left of them at all, trashed, stolen, used as Christmas tree decorations, sold by people wanting to buy drugs with the money, or taken just because they could be. But no, here, the true spirit of goodwill and honour of their staunchly Roman Catholic religion is sacrosanct, revered for what it actually represents.

There are many traditions over the holiday period in Italy though; much more than we have in the UK and in North America, ones where people dress in traditional and colourful costumes such as sheepskin vests and knee high breeches, white stockings and long dark cloaks, and who travel from the Abruzzi Mountains together with horses and goats in all their regalia to entertain the crowds at religious shrines in various towns and villages. Certainly a very unique experience for me, locals young and old alike not embarrassed to get their freak on at all, men in tights, prancing about like fairies instead of looking mean like Mr Bean on their moped machines as they do normally. No, obviously a very special time, taken very seriously indeed. And indeed, we went to one such celebration in a much less touristy village - in itself stunning, so perhaps not for long - built into the coastline and only a short train trip away: Vico Equense.

And you don’t see Santa Claus anywhere; at least I didn’t, ‘cept maybe the drunken depiction of him and Rudolph getting their freak on after a drunken night out on the Christmas card I might possibly have given to Gianluca (with my heartfelt sentiment for the person I’d only met once before on a drunken night ourselves on a particularly raucous night in Naples shortly after the two of them had met).

And then there's a festival known as La Befana (kindly old witch). She, instead of Santa on the 25th, brings toys for the children on La Festa dell'Epifania (the Feast of Epiphany) on January 6^th. An ugly old bitch, if ever there was, but beloved by children and adults alike, images and effigies of her everywhere you look after you're able to distinguish from those older ladies who might've gone too far in their efforts to look good; wearing too much make-up for the craggy terrains of their faces.

The story goes that the Three Wise Men stopped at the witch's hut for directions to Bethlehem and invited her to join them, to which of course she refused, a shifty situation for a time that had just transcended the less enlightened period of BC if ever there was, and with no real law in place anything could have happened to her, witch or not. Later though, a shepherd asked her to get down on her knees, and thinking what the hell is going on here, all these losers trying to pick me up today, her beautification spell obviously visible to everyone else but she herself apparently, she was rather relieved that it turned out he simply wanted her to join him in prayer to pay respect to the Christ child. But she’d refused that tempting offer too; mutton, as she'd thought she was being offered, never really her preference anyway. But that night when she saw the great light of the spaceship in the skies, she thought she should have gone with the three men who might just have been wise after all. So what she did was gather up some toys that’d belonged to her own child who’d died, something about a house flattening her or something I think, but anyhoo... too little too late and despite the fact that extraterrestrial were hovering above the humble stable, shining their beams upon it, she couldn’t actually find it. I mean... come on, call yourself a witch, don’t you have a broom, couldn’t you just fly towards it as the crow does? But as the story goes, each year since, she comes to look for the Christ child, and, of course, never finding Him, leaves presents for the good children, and pieces of coal for the bad ones (nowadays something called ‘carbone dolce’, a rock candy that actually looks like coal – but still, is that anyway to punish a child, give it candy? My eye! Little wonder they say this generation is entitled. Coal is all I got when I was a kid, and grateful for it I was too, and I turned out all right in the end).

But my lasting memories of Harelda were on La Festa di San Silvestro (New Year’s Eve) and just in case you’re wondering, yes, despite Christmas gifts being delivered on 6^th January, that is still celebrated on 31^st December.

Both Vanessa and I have come from humble beginnings, her from a one parent, but nonetheless loving family, with granny and grandpa there to lend their hands, and me from a no parent at all family, kind of trying to ingratiate myself into others. We met in Corfu, Greece, where we were both working for a holiday company, and struck up what was to become a lifelong friendship; becoming family ourselves. Over the years we’ve both kind of reinvented ourselves, refusing to be products of environment, but perhaps this particular Christmas was at a time when still we were overzealous in thinking that other people’s opinions actually mattered (for they don’t anymore, so I guess we made it.) You see, Gianluca’s family, or at least a side of it, is very well to do; owning hotels and property all over the Amalfi Coast including one on the gorgeous island of Capri, and one of them, The Nastro Azzurro Hotel (which I believe means Blue Ribbon but more importantly also the name of the local beer, which I can actually buy in the liquor store here in Canada, but I digress...) is where we were headed to spend the evening with them for New Year’s dinner. Eager to impress what might just have been the Sopranos dressed up for a night on the town; the women beautiful, classy in that kind of nouveau-riche way; perfect blonde hair, a gown that would have cost as much to feed a small African village for a year and shoes made of leather that would’ve been offended if they’d ended up as sandals, the men slick, Italians looking great even if they wear a potato sack, Vanessa was watching her mother’s every move; how she used her fork, listening to her every Northern English word, mortified by her own native vernacular, but generally seeing something that none of them did, nor I, pretty much losing it when Harelda dribbled some of her food down the side of her mouth and onto her blouse. But the clincher was that she was extremely annoyed that Harelda was using a walking frame, insistent that she really didn’t need it, and no offense to those who do, but making the plush hotel look more like the bingo hall at Sunny Acres retirement home. Bit harsh, I thought. But far cry indeed from the last time I’d spent time with Harelda in Nassau, Bahamas when we’d dared her in the busy sophisticated hotel we were in then, to get up to the lobby music and pretend she was waltzing with someone, which she did, magnificently, and to tumultuous applause; winding through the posh sofas where people sat, and around their tables quite gleefully and unabashedly. I remember telling Vanessa off slightly in the subtle way that we can do with each other in a way that doesn’t have us end up arguing; saying that the Mafia found her mother endearing, idiosyncratic. I’m good at reading people, I could tell they did, they thought she brought a wonderfully humorous element to what might have been a stuffy gathering as we all got to know each other; they, soon relaxing and eventually being themselves too; showing their nouveau side more and more throughout the evening; becoming less pretentious themselves, the lacquered hair falling loose, the cigarette packets out on the table as they chained smoked the more they drank, gleaning from Harelda whatever they could about English culture.

But Vanessa might’ve had a point, because one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, bearing in mind her mood, was a drunken, on her copious amounts of amaretto, Harelda (who was, rather classily, it has to be said, in honour of the country we were in, drinking an Italian sweet almond-flavoured liqueur... I mean, she could have asked for stout, or a pint of ale, a snakebite...) desperate for the loo and positively skating across the ice rink terrain of the main reception towards the toilets minus the obnoxious walking frame!

“I told you,” Vanessa said a tad self-righteously, “she’s just pretending she can’t walk so we’ll pity her!”

At midnight everyone filed out onto the patio, Harelda too, walking frame in tow, and Champagne in its cup holder (or have I come to imagine that?) as we watched the firework displays burst into colour from high up in the hills, dotting here and there, near and far, the frosted Amalfi Coast and lighting up its heavy skies that New Years Eve.

And best of all after that New Year's Eve? It was only six days till Christmas.

All images and story Copyright © 2011 - S P Mount. Awesome Inc. template.

Don't like touchy feely Christmas stories? Then check out these two horrible tales of the festive season, short stories I've written.

Family Reunion

A Miserable, Miserable Christmas