""La Festa della Befana" uhm ... I have never heard of this. Unfortunately for me, both of my Italian grandmothers and a Italian grandfather have passed away many years ago. So, I can not ask them if they recall celebrating la Festa della Befana when they were children living in Italy prior"

"Serena, I have only recently discovered your blogs and I can't tell you how much I am enjoying them. They are so interesting and educational at the same time. I am American born but all of my people are from Monreale in Sicily. When you talk about customs such as with coffee, or Christmas cards,"

"Panettone is a dome-shaped cake containing, traditionally, raisins and candied peels, and it's said to have been created in Milano. Pandoro is from Verona, it's a tall, star-shaped cake with a plain dough. Auguri!"

"Thank you everybody for all your nice comments. I'll try to answer them all. Let's start with the Presepe or Presepio: both forms were already present in Latin; according to my Italian dictionary Presepe is generally less common, but I looked in the leaflet published by the town council for the Christmas festivities and all"

"Thank you very much for your article about Christmas in Italy. My father came from Italy in 1921 and it only last year that we got to meet our family over there. They are wonderful people, however, we dont' speak Italian so that is a problem. We are going to Italy in"