The holiday season in Rome is steeped in cultural tradition. It centers around family, friends, designer clothing stores and most importantly food. Here are some of these traditions You can discovered:
Feasting is the most important activity during the Roman holiday season. It is interesting to note that the greatest feast of the ancient Roman Empire, Saturnalia, happens to coincide with the Christmas celebrations of Advent. This highlights two origins of the Christmas season: the familiar traditions blended with the pagan traditions predating the Christian Era. In Rome during on Christmas Eve there is a big meal with many dishes, but no meat. There may be as many as 10 to 20 fish dishes prepared. Traditionally, in Rome, a Capitone, or big female eel, roasted, baked, or fried, is brought to the table. Common throughout Italy are the Christmas sweets: panettone, torrone, and panforte are but a few. All sweets, as a rule, must contain nuts and almonds. Peasant folklore says that to eat nuts aids in the fertility of the earth and increases the flocks and family. In ancient Rome, honey was offered so that the New Year may be sweet.
Christmas trees are displayed more to the north of Rome, while in Rome and to the south one finds Nativity Scenes, competing for extravagance, in the churches and in people's homes. These Nativity Scenes consist of figurines, in clay or plaster, of the Infant Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. An ox and an ass are nearby because they warned the child of His future with their breaths. This tradition dates back to Saint Francis of Assisi. The oldest Nativity Scene, believed to be that of Arnolfo di Cambio (1280), is housed in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, in Rome.
At midnight on Christmas Eve the youngest of every family puts the Baby Jesus in the manger of the family's Nativity Scene. The Nativity Scene in Rome is left standing in every home until the Epiphany, on January 6, when the Magi bring presents for the Infant. According to legend, the Three Wise Men, on their journey to visit the newborn Jesus, stopped to ask an old woman (La Befana) for food and shelter. She refused them and they continued on their way. A few hours later, the old woman glimpsed to the night sky, saw the North Star, and had a change of heart, but the Magi were long gone. She collected toys from around the house that belonged to her deceased child and went to find the Infant Jesus. She never did find Him and continues roaming the world, every year, leaving presents for children in search of the Christ Child.
In Rome's Piazza Navona, there is a typical toy and sweet market where one can meet the Befana in person and get some treats. As for Santa Claus, the man with the white beard and red hat, he is known as Babbo Natale (Father Christmas) and is more popular in the north of Italy. The Catholic tradition calls for the Gesú Bambino (Baby Jesus, but no one ever sees Him walking around) to bring presents to the children on Christmas morning.
These are only a few of the traditions involved in the Italian holiday season. Many of them are different from region to region or even from city to city. But this is a good start to begin your celebrations.

A haunting musical sound very similar to the bagpipe often makes Rome's Christmas visitors think they're in Edinburgh or on the Scottish moors. Actually, the zampognari and pifferai (shepherd pipers originally from the mountain villages around Rome or from the Abruzzi region, pictured at left) are a uniquely Roman Christmas tradition. Dressed in criss-crossed leather leggings, short bulky trousers that are buckled just below the knee, vests of sheepskin (unfortunately now often replaced by more “fashionable” synthetics), velvet jackets and peaked caps, these pipers are a contemporary link to the original shepherds that visited the child in the manger in Bethlehem.

In earlier times, scores of pifferai walked the hundred or so miles to the city, stopping along the way to play their sheepskin bagpipes in exchange for food and lodgings. Now they are more apt to travel by bus or train, but they still crowd into the church of Aracoeli on Christmas eve, to enliven the Midnight Mass with their tunes.

The original manger is the inspiration for another of Rome's Christmas traditions, the presepio or Christmas crib. Most people do not realize that from approximately December 8th to January 6 (Epiphany), ninety percent of the city's churches set up a nativity scene. Some are quite elaborate, some are of dubious artistic quality, others are extremely old and valuable, but almost all their settings are beautiful, and it's easy to spend a pleasant morning or afternoon visiting several of them.

Before starting your tour of the city's homemade cribs, you might want to stop at the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore to view five strips of wood from the original manger itself. There is also an oratory dedicated to the crib theme, dating back to the 7th century when the church was named Beata Maria ad Praesepe (Blessed Mary of the Crib).

The next stop on the presepio circuit is Santa Maria d'Aracoeli, on the Capitoline Hill. According to the authoritative Georgina Masson, this is the world's most famous nativity scene, mainly thanks to its celebrity occupant, the Santo Bambino. Said to have been carved from an olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane, this lifesize statue of the Holy Child is clothed in luxurious fabrics and covered with precious objects donated by believers. For centuries he has been considered to possess miraculous healing powers. In the past he was often taken to visit the sick and at one time he had his own coach. From time to time he has been stolen - presumably to work a miracle on demand - then returned to the church. Consequently he is now kept in a glass case in the sacristy, but at Christmas he is brought out and placed in the manger, beneath a brilliant heavenly sky and surrounded by a host of exquisitely crafted pilgrims and their flocks.

As you stroll the streets during the Christmas season, pop into every house of worship you pass. Small neighborhood churches may have simple displays with only a few lovingly collected figurines, while some of the larger churches such as Il Gesù, Sant'Ignazio, San Giovanni in Laterano and Santa Maria in Trastevere have elaborate dioramas as big as your child's bedroom, with blacksmiths and housewives busy at work, tiny fireplaces ablaze, the heavenly host floating above waxing and waning stars, rosy dawns, and even a comet endlessly leading the way across the sky.

Not all the presepi are in churches, either. You might encounter your first one as you step off the train in the Stazione Termini (pictured at right). The miniature sheep huddled in front of a knee-high Arch of Janus, next to the Porta San Paolo and a segment of ancient Roman wall, are so perfectly crafted that photographs can make them seem real. The City of Rome builds its official crêche on the second ramp of the Spanish Steps, and not surprisingly, it is almost willfully anti-clerical. A scaled-down replica of an entire 18th-century street, it features a tavern called “The Turks” and one of the Pasquino statues upon which irreverent Romans used to pin their anonymous criticisms of the Popes. Not to be outdone by the municipal authorities, the Vatican's manger in St. Peter's Square is larger than lifesize, with huge hunks of fake sheep's cheese, mounds of real straw, and a net to catch the coins of the faithful. It is usually set in front of something you don't see too often in Rome: a Christmas tree.

If you can't get to Rome in December, there are at least two churches with year-round nativity scenes. SS. Cosma e Damiano, flanking the main entrance to the Roman Forum, has an enormous presepio. A masterpiece of 17th-century Naples, which is generally considered the high point of nativity scene craftsmanship, it features hundreds of figures, fifty angels and scores of animals. The other permanent crêche is in the church of S. Maria in Via (pictured at left). Another Neapolitan jewel, it boasts sumptuous costumes of velvet, silk, brocade, satin and leather, magnificent flying angels and the obligatory smoking Vesuvius.

Finally, for those who really love nativity scenes, there is the little-known Museo Tipologico Internazionale del Presepio. It is full of cribs from thirty countries ranging from South America to the Far East. The more than 3000 figurines are made from paper, wax, shells, lead, corn husks, tin, wood, marzipan, bread, hay, leaves, fabric, cork, terra cotta, sugar, biscuit - just about anything you can imagine. One entire crêche is built inside a hazelnut shell, and a Communist-era Polish one is topped by a red star. My favorite is a Czechoslovakian one made of paper.

If you are a true devotee, the museum offers a course each year (usually in October) where you can learn about the techniques and materials used to make a manger scene. If you're not a do-it-yourselfer, end your presepio tour in Piazza Navona, where a host of stands sell crib figurines ranging from inexpensive baubles to pricey masterpieces.

Enjoy nativity scenes, appearances by the famed Santa, and tables and tables of a variety of merchants selling traditional Christmas treats and gifts.

The Piazza Navona, on which this annual market is held, holds a variety of events during the annual market and there's plenty for both adults and children to see and do. On January 6th, Befana (Italian version of Santa) drops by with gifts for the little ones. The square itself is beautiful with many fountains and lights. Admission is free.

Piazza Venezia

Epiphany celebrations are traditional throughout Italy's regions, but Rome caps off the 12th-night of Christmas. The fair takes place at Piazza Navona, site of the lovely Bernini Fountains. Candy, toys and other delights are presented to children. Indeed, some Italians still save their holiday gift exchange for this special night. Both a religious as well as a cultural affair, this event deserves your attendance if at all possible. Free admission.