About two weeks before Christmas, our Trastevere neighborhood began to transform. Glittering lights and blue stars were strung across the Medieval streets and merchants adorned the sidewalks in front of their shops with red "Queen's Carpets." The windows of bakers filled with decorative breads and creches popped up in all sorts of expected and unexpected places, from public piazzas to school hallways.
Christmas creches, or presepe, are a veritable folk art here. Most families assemble their own Christmas creches, adding to them gradually each year with a piece or two. Piazza Navonna's annual Christmas fair is one venue for creche shopping. Here you can find all you need to make your own creche or, for those less creatively inclined, you can purchase ready-made creche figures. Visiting the crowd-filled Christmas fair at Piazza Navona on a weekend afternoon in December, one would never believe the news reports that Italian presepe practices are now threatened traditions, under assault by an invading army of American Christmas trees.
[Above: Piazza Navona's Christmas fair]Some of the creche items sold at Piazza Navona show particular Roman twists. note the Roman soldiers and marble columns for sale alongside the creche Madonnas below.
For some families a manger scene is not enough: many construct villages alongside their creches. While some of these villages are oasis-esque, replete with palm trees, most are more Medieval and depict everything from meat vendors and potters to gamers. [See below].
The Piazza Navona Christmas fair is not limited to creche supplies, one can also find multitudes of images of La Befana, the old woman who gives good Italian children sweets on January 6th and poorly behaved children coal (candy coal is also sold at Piazza Navona, as well!).
Venders also supply children's toys...
After a morning of browsing creche items, we did what most Roman families do this time of year--took a break to eat freshly roasted chestnuts.
Not only do families display their own creches, but they are also displayed in most churches and in some piazzas. The piazza and church-based Christmas creches arrived in Rome later than I expected--in mid-December, and the mangers remained empty until Christmas Eve, when baby Jesuses get added.
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