Some Grinchy, grouchy, Scroogy types say that only small children can experience the true magic of Christmas. And, in the US, only for the first few years of life, because family doesn’t count much and money counts a lot. In Italy, by contrast, a place with which I have native familiarity, family and social ties are still intensely felt, and money is yes, important, but not the single overriding factor in existential happiness.
Yankee Christmas curmudgeons will claim that the magic is all over once you stop believing in Santa Claus. American teenagers are too aloof, grownups too hyper, and old people too out of it to get what the holiday is about. Or they insist that it’s always been humbug — a commercially confected gift of coins rattling around in cash registers worldwide, with a collateral bonus for organized religion of the Christian persuasion.
In Italy, Santa Claus (aka Babbo Natale) is a recent invention appropriated from the US. It used to be that Gesù Bambino brought presents for children on Christmas Day, and the Befana (the Witch) brought more for good boys and girls on the eve of Epiphany (January 5). Since both a resurrected baby Jesus trapsing around on Christmas Eve and a witch balancing millions of bundles of toys on a single broomstick 12 days later press the imagination of all but the most credulous toddler, the…
