Spending your holidays in Italy? Want to know how the Italians celebrate their annual holidays and what their traditions are? Our guide to Italian holiday traditions gives you the facts & information you want to know.
The Italians are very serious about celebrating their holidays. They are even more serious about indulging in all sorts of great foods which are especially prepared for the occasions. The Italian calendar is dotted with holidays that spread across the whole year.
A Carnevale Ogni Scherzo Vale is the time of the year when the Italians go all out on food. The time period that follows the 40 day time period of lent that involves depriving themselves of certain foods is flooded with all sorts of different kinds of dishes. This time period sees the Italians having a no holds barred approach towards food as anything goes in the carnival season.
Another holiday that has found its way into the Italian tradition is Valentine’s Day which was originally part of the tradition of ancient Rome. The day which is supposed to be filled with romance is in Italy a day where stomachs are filled with different kinds of specially prepared food. The romantic flavor is more or less absent in the contemporary Valentine celebrations in Italy.
Italy Christmas Holiday Traditions
The Christmas season is the biggest holiday of the Christian calendar in Italy. The colors of the day are adopted from the national flag of Italy which are green, white and red. Over the years Italy has developed unique Christmas customs that are not to be found anywhere else in the world. From the color schemes to the different cuisines Christmas is one of the most widely celebrated traditional holidays with a religious fervor in Italy.
Amongst the various religious holidays is that of Easter and Easter Monday. The particular date always varies each year but irrespective of the actual date that it falls on Easter time is filled with many ceremonies and festivals. The Italians have their own culinary customs that uphold this religious holiday.
If you are in Italy around the first of April then you ought to be careful because the first of April is celebrated as April fool’s day. Where this ridiculous tradition of fooling around came from is uncertain but today it holds a prominent place in Italian culture as the public goes all out in trying to make a fool out of each other.
Thanksgiving in Italy
Thanksgiving is another traditional holiday that has been adapted from the American culture. The day sees the Italians indulging in a heavy dinner to which they add their own special recipes to accompany the traditional thanksgiving meal.
The Venice Carnival is one of the most bizarre festivals that you will get to witness in Italy. It is considered amongst one of the biggest festivals of Europe which is characterized by masquerade parties. The Italians have a festival to celebrate the end of the plague that hit the country in the 16th century. There are a lot of holidays particular to different regions. Every different region has a holiday and different ways of celebrating it. Most of these regional holiday traditions are based upon religion and are usually in memory of the saints of the region.
