In the Italian tradition, la Befana is an old hag, a witch-like character that, on the night between the 5th and the 6th of January – what’s known as Twelfth Night elsewhere – flies around on her broomstick and brings small gifts to children… candies and small toys for the nice ones, coal for the naughty ones.

Harking back to pagan traditions and the Roman Saturnalia, La Befana is therefore like a low-budget, working-class or peasant Santa Claus alternative – she too fills stockings, but her gifts are usually small, cheap and of a very earthy and practical nature: candies, maybe a scarf or a pair of socks, small toys, maybe a paperback book or a comic book. Sweets retailers and supermarkets carry packs of sugar-candy “coal” for the occasion.

Back in the early 20th century, la Befana (who had been fully endorsed by the Fascist Regime, quite ironically) could fill a kid’s stockings with tangerines, chocolates or cookies. The Befana gifts are pocket-sized by default. She’s the poor-man’s Santa Claus stand in.
And despite her (involuntary) meddling with the fascists, I like her very much¹.

In my family, we were in the habit of exchanging gifts on the evening of the 5th of January – simply because my mother was born on the 7th of January, and so we collapsed the two celebrations together.

Now that my mother is no longer with us, I keep making season’s gifts to my brother – and to some friends – chartering la Befana².

Sometimes they get back at me.
This year’s twelfth night stocking was filled with five (5!) books. Continue reading →