Christmas in San Gavino Monreale - a work of the III D

What do you do on Christmas day?
Do you do anything special on Christmas Eve?
What is your traditional Christmas cake ?
Do you have the crib in your houses?
Do you have some traditions for the 31st of December?

Would you like to answer these questions about your traditions?

Thank you very much!!!!!

We wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

In Italy - Sardinia - we spend Christmas every year on the 25th of December. It is very important and we have some traditions.

Streets, squares, public places and houses are decorated with lights. There is a magic atmosphere everywhere.
We have a lot of Christmas cakes like pandoro and panettone. Panettone is a cake with raisins and sugar-candies but pandoro is different because there is too much butter and there aren't raisins and sugar-candies into it. Sometimes it's made of chocolate or cream.
In Sardinia we eat the “pan’e saba”, (bread of sapa in English), from the name of the cooked must that is kneaded with flour, fresh yeast, water, walnuts and chopped pine nuts, cloves of carnation, grated cinnamon, and sometimes with added eggs. Once baked, the Pan'e saba is covered with colorful small pearl of sugar.
It is produced nearly everywhere in Sardinia.

What is your traditional Christmas cake?

On Christmas Eve we stay together with the family and have dinner and then we go to church for the midnight mass.
On Christmas day everyone, at home and in the streets, wishes a Merry Christmas to people and we open the presents. People go to church and when they come back have a big lunch together. (roast little pork, ravioli or pasta al forno and so on…)
A lot of people when they finish lunch play: tombola, bingo and enjoy themselves a lot.

What do you do on Christmas day?


An important tradition is also the crib (il presepio in Italian language); all families have a crib in their houses but also a Christmas tree decorated with a lot of lights, stars, coloured balls and angels. Under the tree there are the presents, our favourite part of Christmas. When there is a baby, there is also Santa Claus (Babbo Natale in Italian language)
Houses have lights outside too and the houses look shining.

Some typical Italian songs:"Tu scendi dalle stelle", "Astro del ciel",

Some typical Sardinian songs: Notte de chelu, Naschid'est, In sa notte profunda,



Notte de chelu

Notte de chelu es custa d'ogni sinu

de allegria si sentit bundare,

ca in sa grutta es nadu su Bambinu

dai s'inferru pro nos liberare.

Es nadu, es nadu, es nadu su Bambinu.

Enide, enide tottus a l'ammirare,

enide a l'adorare,

enide a l'adorare, a l'amare.

Iss'a lassadu su chelu lughentee 

bennid'est a sa grutta a penare,

che fizigheddu de povera zentee 

fit zu fizzu de su Re divinu.

Es nadu, es nadu...

Subra sa paza l'ana collocadu

ca non b'aiat lacu a reposare,
ma sos Anghelos l'ana acoltegiadu

tra sas istellas fatendhe caminu.

Es nadu, es nadu...

Pustis sun sos pastores acudidosche 

pover itos a lu saludaree 

tra lughe de chelu si sun bidose tottu an bid'oro in su terrinu.
Es nadu, es nadu...
Pannos no at sa Mama a lu estire, ma sa lughe l'hat chelfid'ammantare: no at prendhas nè oro a si frunire, m'a tott'astros e mundhu in destinu.
Es nadu, es nadu...

With the music instrument the “Launeddas”. It is a typical Sardinian woodwind instrument, consisting of three pipes cane-made. What a magic sound!!!!!.

Before Christmas, In San Gavino, we celebrate Saint Lucy on 13th December.
Thanks a lot.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!Best wishes!!.