THE HOLIDAY SEASON IN ASCOLI PICENO

By Larry & Arlene on Dec 22, 2018 in Blog | 1 comment

The Christmas celebration officially began here in Italy on the 8thof December with the observance of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary by the Roman Catholic Church. But the actual Italian start date for Christmas preparation seems a bit more flexible.   Probably being influenced by the retail commercialization of Christmas in our homeland, store displays and merchandising here in Ascoli Piceno seem to have started appearing earlier in each year we have been here. But that is still nothing like the constantly advancing buying frenzy, calendar creep, in America. Fortunately, the Christmas Season in Italy still feels more traditional and family oriented and a bit less overwhelmed by consumerism than in the U.S.       We recently went to Rome for ten days to participate in an intensive Italian language course in preparation to take an examination of our ability to understand, speak and write in Italian. As we mentioned in a previous post, by passing this exam, we will be able to apply for a longer-term Italian immigration permission.  That test is now behind us. We are optimistic about the test results but won’t have the official outcome for a couple of months. So more on that later.  But the observation I wanted to make is that Rome is such a busy place and so filled with tourists that we didn’t have a sense of as much of the charm that we feel during the Christmas Season in Ascoli Piceno. In Rome many of the holiday light displays were already installed over some streets and the Christmas Market had been set-up in the Piazza Navona just before we left to come back to Ascoli post-test.  Over recent years, the Christmas market in the Piazza Navona seems to have taken on more of a County Fair atmosphere. Many of the temporary, wooden market stalls featured stuffed ‘plush’-toys typical of any time of year. And then there were offerings of very realistic-looking, toy military weapons to excite sweet children during this season of love. Surrounding Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers, there were also midway-style, arcade games to play. And there was even cotton candy.  Another impression of Christmas celebration preparation in Rome was a conspicuous  presence of law enforcement and uniformed Italian Army...