Last night Lynette and I went to the Sons of Italy Christmas Party. It was a great time with delicious food and friendly people.
There was what they called a "Thieves Christmas". Wrapped gifts were exchanged at random with the chance to take someone else's gift. We brought a bottle of Frangelico hazelnut flavoured liqueur and received an hourglass.
I learned about the Italian holiday called La Befana.
"In Italian folklore, Befana is an old woman who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on Epiphany Eve (the night of January 5) in a similar way to Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus. ..."
This video explains the tradition:
yes sir, in the past and even when I was a child, the befana was even more important then Christmas ! and all the children was waiting for her to get their toys !!!
ReplyDeleteit is a beautiful tradition still resisting to the time with a lot of happening between the night of the 5th and the 6th of January.... if you wish to know more...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befana
ciao John and thanks from Italy to the attention to our history !
I never knew about La Befana until I joined the Sons of Italy group. It's all very interesting for me.
Deleteciao Massimo