What's happening in December in January? (Travel Tips and more)

Learn what happens in January in Italy

Lesson Transcript

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to ItalianPod101.com.

My name is Desy.

Mi chiamo Desy.

And in this video, we're going to talk about what happens in January in Italy.

Gennaio in Italia

So as I just said, January is Gennaio and Gennaio starts off already on the first day with a holiday.

Il primo di Gennaio è Capodanno.

The first of January is the head of the year, Capodanno, because it's at the head, capo, of the year, Capodanno.

This is actually the day after San Silvestre's night.

So basically, you recover from the party and then it's said that what you do on the first of the year, you do for the rest of the year.

Quello che fai il primo dell'anno, lo fai tutto l'anno.

So you want to make sure to have a nice and pleasant day so that you can spend the rest of the days of the year just like this one.

During this day, the main event is the lunch, so il pranzo di Capodanno, which is sometimes made of leftovers from the night before.

So avanzi, avanzi, but still it involves things that bring good luck.

For example, lenticchie, lenticchie, so lentils, and then it's about meat, so for example tortellini in brodo.

Tortellini in brodo, so you know tortellini is the pasta with meat in, or you can have lasagne, cannelloni,

cannelloni is big pasta filled with stuff, meat most likely, and then baked in the oven.

Then of course with lenticchie you can have il cotechino, cotechino, which is pork sausage, or also arrosto, roasted beef, it really depends on people.

Some families even have fish, and in the South, Naples in particular, it's common to have la minestra maritata, minestra maritata.

Maritato is a word from Naples dialect, so marito is husband, maritato or maritata, since we're talking about the female here,

means that she has a husband, so married, and minestra maritata is because all the ingredients match each other so good that they are meant to be husband and wife basically.

Inside it has vegetables and also cotenna, so the pig skin, or sausage, salsiccia.

For desserts you have pandoro and panettone, but maybe you want to make a new version of it, so for example tiramisù, but with those,

let's say that you're supposed to have a lighter meal than the night before, but that's not always the case, rarely actually.

Okay, then we have a small break, let's say, till the next holiday, which is the 6th of January,

il sei gennaio e l'epifania, epifania, so the day of Befana.

Befana is this old lady, not to be confused with a witch because it doesn't have like a pointed head.

That brings actually gifts to kids, she brings it inside socks, or even better, actually the kid is supposed to leave an empty sock outside on the 5th of January.

In an ideal place you would put that on the fireplace, but if you don't have it you just put it somewhere in the house,

and then the next day the kid would find it filled with things.

Now the things that you find are candies and some small toys and fruits if you were a good boy or girl,

but if you didn't behave properly then you would find onions, garlic and coal.

Actually there is a special candy here in Italy which is sugar, colored sugar, black, so that resembles coal,

but it's just a candy and that's to symbolize that occasionally every kid doesn't behave perfectly,

so they still receive it, but it's not the black unedible one.

There are many legends around this female figure, some say that she's related to Babbo Natale,

some say that they're rivals actually, but there is a Christian one that tells that the three kings,

so the Re Magi that went and saw Jesus Christ for his birth, they spent some time with her,

they met her before going to Jesus Christ and told her that she should come as well,

but she refused because she was too busy with her swiping and house chores,

but later on she regretted and wanted to see the baby.

So the legend says that she started knocking on people's doors asking for this baby

that she couldn't find in the end, but thinking that it could be any of the baby that she met,

she brought gifts and she left some to every baby that she met,

and that's how they justify, let's say, the fact that she brings gifts to kids.

There are also several poems dedicated to the Befana.

For example, one says La Befana viene di notte, La Befana viene di notte,

so La Befana comes at night con le scarpe tutte rotte, with her broken shoes,

all broken shoes, con le scarpe tutte rotte, il cappello alla romana,

Roman hat, il cappello alla romana, viva viva La Befana.

Yeah, yeah, it's La Befana, e piu purei for La Befana.

Now I said il cappello alla romana,

but actually there are many versions where sometimes it's the dress or the nose,

but anyway, alla romana, because as I said before,

this comes from the legend of the Catholic Romans.

Either way, l'epifania tutte le feste porta via.

L'epifania tutte le feste porta via.

So the epiphany, which is the day of La Befana, brings away all the festivities,

which means that this is the end of celebrations for Christmas and New Year's.

In fact, it's the 7th of January, the day when schools start again,

and also like work, you go back to work if you had a break.

This is the day where you can still visit things typical of this period,

for example, il presepe vivente, so a living representation of the birth of Jesus Christ,

presepe vivente, or il villaggio di Natale, Christmas village,

where you can see, you know, la casa di Babbo Natale, which is Santa Claus' house,

and you can eat like street food and so on.

During this period, but also in all January in general,

you could also find spettacoli di luci, so lights, exhibitions,

spettacoli di luci, entertainment made with lights, for example, in city squares,

and of course, entertainment on the snow.

So not only the whole settimana bianca, so the white week,

where people go and spend time on the snow and practice and play like winter sports,

but also just for example, una ciaspolata, or motoslitta, day, excursion.

Ciaspolata is snow shoeing and motoslitta is snow mobile, the bike on the snow, literally motoslitta.

So those are the activities that you can do during January,

which ends with three particular days.

In fact, 28th, 29th, and 30th of January are known to be I giorni della Merla.

So Merlo is blackbird, Merla is the female of the blackbird,

and I giorni della Merla are considered the coldest days of the year,

and the legend says that they're called of the Merla, I giorni della Merla,

because the blackbird, which once was white actually,

had to protect herself and also the babies in the chimney of a fireplace,

and that lasted three days, because it was so cold that when she got out,

she was completely covered in soot, and that's why she became black.

So the blackbird before was the whitebird, literally.

Another legend says that January, the month January, was really mean to the Merla,

and threw storms and blizzard when she was around.

So she decided not to go out for the whole month of January,

so she collected food before just in order not to go out,

and when she finally did, which was the last day of January,

then January, the month, the personification of the month,

sent all the coldness that he could,

and yeah, that's why we say that the end of January is the coldest.

Still, it had something to do with blackbirds.

So all in all, I would say that January is a cold month

that you either want to spend inside eating and maybe having hot chocolate,

cioccolata calda, or you want to enjoy the snow by being outside, but wear warm clothes.