Christmas, or Natale in Italy, is traditionally about food and spending time with family.
 
Due to Italy’s Christian heritage, Christmas is celebrated in a similar way to the UK. But there are some key differences.
 
If you’re planning to expand your business into Italy or run a Christmas marketing campaign, you need to be aware of the local customs, symbols and traditions to tailor your message to an Italian audience.

The Italian festive period starts around 8th December and ends on 6th January.
 
As well as Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, these dates are public holidays in Italy.
 
The religious Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 8th December, is usually when Christmas markets and decorations start to appear.
 
6th January, or Epiphany, is widely celebrated in Italy and comes with a unique holiday figure.

As well as recognising religious figures like Jesus, Mary and the Wise Men, and secular characters like Father Christmas (Babbo Natale), Italian children hang up stockings for La Befana on 5th January.
 
La Befana is said to be an old woman or a sort of ‘good witch’ who rides on a broomstick, bringing fruit, nuts and gifts for Epiphany. If children have been naughty, she gives them lumps of coal instead (or edible black sweets that represent coal). Local communities often have Epiphany celebrations where adults dress as La Befana and give out presents.

Christmas trees and lights adorn the streets in Italy but usually aren’t accompanied by the light switch on ceremonies that are popular in England. Poinsettia and holly are common decorations and mistletoe is given out in bunches at New Year for good luck.
 
Nativity scenes (Presepe) decorate churches and squares, especially in Naples, which is famous for its hand-made scenes. You can even catch live nativity scenes where performers act out the Christmas story.

Italian-style Christmas markets, selling food, drinks and toys, line the streets and the Sforza Castle in Milan is transformed into a huge Christmas village every year called Oh Bej! Oh Bej!
 
On Christmas Eve (La Vigilia), many families attend midnight mass at their local church and, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, there’s a beautiful torchlight parade where skiers whizz down the slopes carrying torches.
​

Turkey isn’t a Christmas dinner staple in Italy and menus vary throughout the country.
 
In the area I come from in the north, Cappelletti, a stuffed pasta (similar to Tortellini) in broth, is a popular first course, followed by Zampone, pig’s trotter filled with pork mincemeat, and mashed potato.
 
You won’t see Christmas puddings, mince pies and yule logs on the table either. Italians commonly eat Panettone or Pandoro, a sugary bread, for dessert.
 
On Christmas Eve, some families observe the Catholic tradition of eating fish instead of meat. Lentil dishes are popular on New Year’s Eve as they’re associated with good luck.

Christmas marketing often uses festive symbols, but these may not be universally understood.
 
For example, Italians don’t have Christmas crackers, so phrases like ‘You’d be crackers to miss this deal’ would need to be transcreated by a professional Italian translator to find a relatable alternative.
 
The Budweiser advert that said, ‘Wise men don’t drink and drive’, would also need to be transcreated to retain its meaning. In Italy, the wise men are known as I re magi, ‘the three kings’, so the wordplay wouldn’t translate directly across.
 
Similarly, images of Santa, reindeers and elves are common, but using snowmen or referring to a ‘white Christmas’ would be maybe more relevant in the snowy north of Italy than the warmer south.
 
By being aware of Italian Christmas customs, you can tailor your marketing messages to a local audience and ensure your campaign is successful.
 
Planning an Easter marketing campaign? Here’s how Easter is celebrated in Italy.

Autumn is a great time to visit Italy. It’s less hot and crowded than in the summer and there’s lots going on. From food festivals and sporting events to niche local celebrations.
 
Although some of the best Italian events are in the summer, whatever you’re into and whichever region you’re visiting, you’ll be sure to find an autumnal event that’s right up your street.
 
Here are 6 of the most interesting events in Italy in autumn:
​

Faenza is famous for producing Maiolica, a type of tin-glazed pottery. On the first weekend in September every two years, the city is home to the Argillà ceramics festival. People from around 20 countries all over the world flock to the festival to sell their ceramic products. As well as stalls and exhibitions, there are events focused on the techniques used to make pottery, activities for kids and even a Worldwide Potter’s Wheel Championship. Hidden courtyards in the city are opened exclusively for the festival.

Like history, chess and fancy dress? Then head to the Marostica Scacchi in the second weekend of September. Every two years, Marostica holds a giant chess match with human chess pieces! Why? They’re re-enacting a famous fifteenth-century chess game where two warriors competed to decide who would marry the eldest daughter of the Castellano di Marostica. Aside from the huge chess game in the Piazza Castello, the weekend is filled with costume parades, music and fireworks.

The largest international festival of comics in Italy and Europe is held in Lucca at the end of October every year. The historic city, with its fortified walls, sees people from around the world come together, usually in fancy dress, to celebrate comics, board games and animations. You can listen to and meet famous comic book writers, fantasy authors and illustrators, browse shops or compete in a cosplay competition. 

If sport is more your thing, check out the Sports Festival in Trento. A relatively new event, the Festival dello Sport promises four days of debates, seminars, sporting activities and sports camps. Local and international sports stars attend the event and you can listen to talks from Olympic and Paralympic athletes, technicians and sporting experts. From basketball to indoor rowing, there’s something for everyone. 

Possibly the most famous of the many Italian sagre, this international food festival, held throughout October and November, is an annual celebration of the Tartufo Bianco, or white truffle. As well as sampling regional produce, you can embark on a truffle walk, attend cooking shows, or watch a medieval parade and donkey race!

Planning an event in Italy this autumn and want to attract a local audience?
 
As an Italian translator and content writer, I can translate your information into Italian to make sure it grabs attention and persuades the right people to attend.
 
Get in touch for a free translation quote today.
 
Running a sporting event? Check out my top tips for acing your sports translation.

If you’re visiting Italy in autumn, the chances are you won’t be far away from a sagra. Sagre are festivals or fairs that celebrate local customs and produce. They’re usually focused on a particular type of food.
 
Sagre typically have produce stalls, giant outdoor tables for people to sit and eat together and many restaurants put on special menus to mark the occasion. It’s not all about the food though. There’s often music, competitions and costume parades too.
 
Attending a sagra can help you get to know Italy further and mix with the locals. Keep your eye out for the colourful posters that advertise the festivals, or head to the nearest tourist office for information.
 
Autumn is a particularly good time to visit an Italian festival as there are hundreds to choose from.
 
Here are a few to look out for:

Every August near Savona in the north west of Italy, it’s all about the eggplant (or aubergine) as locals get together to celebrate the Sagra della Melanzana Ripiena. With a focus on sustainability, there’s lots of veggie and vegan food and volunteers prepare the aubergine mains, sides and sauces using local raw materials.
 
If you’re not a fan of aubergine, don’t worry. There are also ravioli and other delicacies to devour, as well as local Ligurian wines and desserts.

If you’re in Puglia in the last weekend of September, check out the Zampina festival in Sammichele. The town is well-known for its Zampina, a grilled sausage in a spiral shape. The festival serves up zampina with wine and balls of mozzarella, known as bocconcino. Aside from sampling the food, there’s music and entertainment in the evenings.

At the end of September in Le Marche, look out for the Festa del Vino Cotto. This festival is a celebration of the region’s sweet red wine that is traditionally cooked in a cauldron. During the festival, locals participate in wine tastings and enjoy live music. A similar festival takes place in the town of Loro Piceno in August.

Dating back as far as 1925, the Sagra dell’uva, or grape festival, is a quirky festival set in Marino, a medieval town in the Alban Hills. The region is famous for its wine and, on the first Sunday of October, the locals celebrate their favourite tipple with food, fireworks and a medieval costume parade. The town’s love of wine goes as far as changing their biggest public water fountain into a wine fountain during the sagra!

The Festival of Forgotten Fruits in Casola Valsenio celebrates regional fruits that used to be popular but are no longer commonly used. During the festival, restaurants put on seasonal menus with dishes made using ‘forgotten fruits’ like mulberry, gooseberry, sorb apple, quince and vulpine pears. Various stalls sell these fruits too in the hope that they’ll make a comeback into local cuisine.

This unique sagra held in Tuscany in the last weekend in October translates into English as the Feast of the Thrush. The festival is a re-enactment of a medieval tournament and its main focus is an archery competition between the 4 districts of the city. Aside from the main event, there’s also folk dancing, jousting tournaments, falconry displays and medieval banquets. The locals serve up wine and traditional foods like wild boar, pappardelle and various grilled meats.

The International White Truffle Festival held in Alba throughout October and November is possibly the most famous of the many Italian truffle festivals. Tartufo Bianco is a white truffle that grows in the region and the festival gives you the chance to really get to know it. There are hundreds of dishes made with truffle, truffle walks and even a Palio race with donkeys.
 
If you still want to experience a truffle festival, but want something a bit more low key, there’s a white truffle festival in Sant’Agata Feltria in Emilia-Romagna every Sunday in October.

Planning your own festival or event in Italy and need to persuade local people to attend? Perhaps you can take inspiration from Italian sagre and advertise your event using posters or social media!
 
Either way, your event information will need to be translated into Italian to connect with your target audience, bearing in mind local dialectal terms.
 
As an Italian translator and content writer, I can translate your information into Italian to make sure it grabs attention and persuades the right people to attend.
 
Get in touch for a free translation quote today!

If you’re travelling to Italy this summer, there’s no better way to get to know the local area than by attending an event. Summer is festival season in Italy and there’s lots going on in every region.
 
Here’s a rundown of the best events in Italy over the summer months:

Every year on June 16th, Pisa is lit up by candles to celebrate its patron saint, San Ranieri. This tradition dates back to the 1600s when the urn containing the remains of San Ranieri was placed in the city’s cathedral. Over 70,000 candles float on the river, light up buildings and decorate the river banks. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is also illuminated by oil lamps.

The Palio di Siena is probably the most famous Italian Palio. It even featured in the James Bond film, the Quantum of Solace! The Palio di Siena is a medieval-style horse race between 10 of the 17 districts of the city. It takes place annually in July and August, in Siena’s Piazza del Campo.
 
The 10 jockeys race 3 laps around the edge of the square and huge crowds gather to watch the horses navigate the track’s tight corners. The first to finish wins a giant hand-painted banner, as well as the honour of winning the Palio for their district.

Ferragosto marks the start of the summer holidays in Italy. Although some locals shut their shops and head on holiday, there’s still lots for tourists to do. Many cities have street parties, like the Gran Ballo di Ferragosto in Rome, a popular event that includes dancing, food and live music. As Ferragosto coincides with the religious feast of the Assumption, lots of Italian towns have church services and processions where statues of the Virgin Mary are carried through the town centre.

Running your own event in Italy and want to attract a local audience?
 
As an Italian translator and content writer, I can translate your event information into Italian, make sure it resonates with an Italian audience, grabs attention and persuades the right people to attend.
 
To help make your event an international success, get in touch for a free translation quote today.

If you’re aiming to expand your business into Italy or run an Easter themed marketing campaign, you need to be aware of the local Easter customs and traditions and any potential cultural differences.
 
This will help you decide what to include and avoid in your marketing materials to tailor them to an Italian audience:
 

• Public holidays

 
Let’s start with the practical stuff. Good Friday isn’t a public holiday in Italy, but the Monday after Easter is. Italians refer to Easter Monday as La Pasquetta, meaning ‘Little Easter’.
 

• Religious traditions

 
Traditional Christian rituals such as foot washing and marking the stations of the cross are observed across Italy during Holy Week (the week before Easter).
 
On Easter Sunday, many families attend mass together at church. The Pope leads a ceremony in St Peter’s Square in Rome and delivers an Easter blessing, Urbi et Orbi.
 

• Festivals & celebrations

 
Different cities and regions of Italy celebrate Easter in their own unique ways. Here are two interesting examples:
 
Scoppio del Carro, Florence
The ‘exploding of the cart’ is a huge firework display that takes place in Florence on Easter Sunday. A cart filled with fireworks is pulled into the Piazza del Duomo by decorated oxen. Then, a rocket in the shape of a dove is used to light the contents of the cart!
 
The Festival of Eggs, Tredozio
 
The Palio dell'uovo, a 2-day competition in Tredozio, is all about eggs! Highlights include a medieval parade, a hard-boiled egg eating contest and a race to find 200 boiled eggs in a haystack.
 

• Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi

 
This rhyming Italian phrase translates roughly as ‘Christmas is spent with family, Easter is spent with whoever you want’.
 
Although Easter Sunday is traditionally spent with relatives, Italians often spend Easter Monday outdoors with friends, taking a day trip or having a picnic.
 

• Food

 
A typical Easter Sunday dinner in Italy includes lamb. For dessert, there are special Easter cakes like Colomba Pasquale, a sweet bread in the shape of a dove, and Pastiera Napoletana, a tart made with ricotta cheese, eggs, berries and orange flower water.
 

• Easter symbols

 
Eggs are an important Easter symbol in Italy. They have connotations of new life and re-birth that align with the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Chocolate eggs are very popular and often have gifts inside.
 
Much of the Easter imagery in Italy stems from religion and is similar to the symbolism used in the UK. However, the idea of the Easter Bunny isn’t common in Italy, so it’s best to avoid any references to it in your marketing!

The lack of an Easter Bunny in Italy demonstrates the importance of adapting your marketing materials to suit a local audience. 
 
If you’ve used any Easter-related word-play, such as ‘hop over’, ‘EGGcellent’ and ‘have a cracking Easter’, these phrases would need to be ‘transcreated’ as they have no direct translation into Italian. It’s best to ask an Italian translator, who understands the local culture to find an alternative way of expressing the same message, but in a way that Italian people can relate to.

The Co-op’s Easter campaign where they were ‘on the hunt for good eggs’ is another example of a tagline that would need to be creatively translated to appeal to the Italian market. As would this Easter tagline from Reese’s: ‘We feel sorry for the chocolate bunnies. They’re just so empty inside’.

By being aware of the customs surrounding Easter in Italy, you can tailor your marketing materials and ensure your campaign is successful.

I’ll adapt your marketing campaign from English into Italian and ensure your company stands out in the Italian marketplace.
 
Get in touch for a free quote today.