Our Chrismukkah feast
This morning, after opening presents, we went to the church of San Francesco for the noon mass, to experience an Italian Christmas service. It was a pretty normal Catholic mass, with organ music, and an assistant priest with a beautiful tenor voice. We sang Astro del Cielo (Silent Night) and Tu Scendi dalle Stelle, the traditional Italian song posted on my blog. I was also pleasantly surprised at how much I could understand of the priest's sermon in Italian (although I'll admit I did zone out a few times).
The church of San Francesco is also famous for its elaborate traditional Presepio, or Nativity scene. I wasn't expecting anything like what we saw. We walked into a small, dark room with a ramped floor in front of the Nativity display. At 5pm on Christmas day the room was packed - the streets of Bologna had been bare all day, but when we walked into this small room we discovered where everyone went! The Nativity scene was actually a small village, with moving figures, lights that changed from day to night and back again, and holiday music to go along. It was stunning. There were smaller figures in the background doing daily chores, like spinning wool and chopping wood, and there was even a waterfall with real water. When the sky changed from day to night, the stars and moon would appear, and of course the North Star, which looked like a comet.
Most striking was how important going to see this display seemed to be to everyone's Christmas celebration. You could tell that they'd left their houses just to see this Nativity scene with their families, and everyone was so excited about it. Even the old ladies would whisper to each other, "Oh, now it's daytime! Now it's night, look at the stars!" It was a cultural experience just to observe everyone enjoying the display.
The Presepio at dawn, with the sun rising
Close-up of Mary, Jesus, and the Three Kings
Crowds of people in front of the display
Nighttime in the Presepio
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