December in Atina was a month full of charm, anticipation and ancient rituals that brought the community together in the spirit of faith, family and sharing. The cold was biting, often accompanied by snow, and the night-time frosts put the farmers’ work to the test. Harvests were meagre, but those who managed to preserve savoy cabbage and green cabbage could count themselves lucky. In homes, people turned to their stocks of dried fruit – walnuts, almonds, figs and chestnuts – which also took centre stage at the Christmas dinner, alongside peppers and prepared vegetables in the c’mposta style.
The birth of the Baby Jesus was not celebrated with decorated trees and modern illuminations, but with the nativity scene, a staple in every home, even the poorest. The hand-carved wooden figurines and the bed of moss recreated a simple and poetic scene. According to tradition, up to seven days before Christmas, it was customary to bake bread in wood-fired ovens: afterwards, the empty space in the oven became a niche in which to set up the nativity scene, which remained there until Epiphany.
The eve was a day of fasting. A special kind of coffee was sold in the cellars, known as p’ llus’, brewed in coffee pots similar to the Belgian ones, and served hot in the ’Ciucculater’ with raw sugar. The result was a rather plain drink, almost a ciufeca, which cost a few pennies or one nicchella.
The Christmas dinner varied greatly depending on people’s financial circumstances. In peasant households, there was always boiled fish, spaghetti in chicken stock and the traditional pepatiegl’. The more affluent families, on the other hand, laid on lavish feasts: deep-fried pizzas with anchovies, salt cod, spaghetti with octopus or lupini beans, grilled eel, ‘bastardoni’, and salads of sea urchin and escarole with local olives and small anchovies. Rosemary-roasted chestnuts were a must, and for dessert, ’sesemiegli’, ‘serpentiegli’, diamond-shaped nougat and other Christmas sweets.
The historian Dr Ermanno Visocchi, in his Memoirs, it also recounts the custom observed on 10 December, the feast day of Our Lady of Loreto, when every household would prepare litres of coffee to offer to anyone who came in. Its pages describe the anticipation of the festivities, the solemnity of Mass, the sumptuousness of the festive dinner – featuring salt cod, eel and a dome-shaped nougat broken by the eldest member of the family – and the lunch on 25 December with the traditional “minestra dei gobbi”. During the festive season, the most popular pastime was bingo, played with beans instead of tokens, amidst laughter, jokes and shouts.
«Numerous family traditions that have been handed down for hundreds of years come to mind. On 10 December, the feast day of Our Lady of Loreto, several litres of coffee were prepared in the kitchen because, according to custom, everyone who entered the house that day had to be offered a cup of coffee. In the morning, a solemn Mass was celebrated in our chapel by three priests… The approach of the Christmas festivities brought about a sort of general euphoria and the house was abuzz with excitement… For the Christmas dinner, the same dishes always had to be served, in keeping with family tradition; so there had to be fish fritters or salt cod, roasted eel and “bastardoni”, and for dessert a »cupola’ of nougat which, again in keeping with custom, the most authoritative member of the family had to break with a punch. For lunch on the 25th, however, ‘minestra dei gobbi’ was an absolute must – a dish that had been handed down for years and years in our household. During the Christmas festivities, the most common game was bingo. Each of us had our own little pile of beans next to our cards, and with every number drawn there were endless shouts, clamour, jokes and laughter.
New Year’s Eve also had its own social highlight: it was the time for New Year’s Eve parties, Alvito sweets and domestic cigarettes sold by Rusinella the tobacconist. Foreign cigarettes – rare and prized – were ordered from Rome. Later, Caira Giuseppina’s tobacconist’s, under the Arc la Porta, he began selling them regularly and introduced the first hand-crank telephone, which aroused great curiosity among the children of Atina.
December was, after all, a month associated with weather forecasting, thanks to the ancient system of Calemme. From 13 December (Saint Lucy’s Day) to 6 January, people observed atmospheric phenomena, linking the twelve days from the 13th to the 24th with those from the 26th to 6 January: a sort of weather calendar that farmers used to predict the weather for the coming months. Particular attention was paid to Christmas Eve: between midnight on the 24th and noon on the 25th, changes in the sky were noted. If there were numerous phenomena – snow, stars, rain – this was interpreted as a sign of a bountiful year; if, on the other hand, the night remained uneventful, the year would be a lean one.
December, with its traditions, flavours and rituals, was therefore not only a festive month for Atina, but also a time of community, hope and remembrance.
