There are many people who love the festive air of Christmas and look forward to the days anticipating lights, songs and sparkling wrapping paper. I am among them and I have never hidden the little mania of making my Christmas tree in October to enjoy it for a couple of months more. Precisely for this reason, during the holidays, I love to go around the villages of Italy that smell the most of Christmas, in search of ideas, stories and, above all, atmosphere.
So, after visiting mountain villages, snow-covered cities, glittering towns, I finally landed in a place that made me think that, yes, maybe here it could be Christmas all year round. Almost. It was the first day of 2022. Do you know Tagliacozzo? It is a pearl of houses perched on a mountain that looks like a papier-mâché nativity scene and makes you exclaim Oooooh, as soon as you get to guess its contours and breathe the smell of wood and ash still hot. At Christmas there you can listen to festive music throughout the historic center that seems mixed by the elves themselves and all around you get lost in the shop windows that merge history and happiness, sip a mulled wine in that bar that exudes energy with good humor and walking around trampling stories that we can’t wait to hear.
It was just as I was walking, full of all these emotions of embers and hollies that I thought of something a bit special: wouldn’t it be nice to elect this village as the town of Christmas all year round? Something like October to March, until spring blooms and rightly asks for the passing of the baton that is due? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to think that in these six months anyone who wanted those feelings could simply go to Tagliacozzo (located 40 minutes from Rome), the town of Christmas, to get lost among trinkets and cinnamon sweets, between songs and poems, imagining that Christmas is at the door? I find it romantically possible and technically feasible. This wonderful nativity scene could caress the uniqueness of a gift to be unwrapped well before Christmas, well beyond Christmas, being recognized as a feature that – in my opinion – would make this village absolutely unique in its kind.
It would be so nice to imagine the shop windows in the center always colorful and festive, the bars overflowing with apple and chocolate sweets, and the cheerful music that floats beyond the city gates, entering the windows, pockets and hearts of all visitors who, with good reason, would like to go and exchange a kiss under the mistletoe, wishing each other a Merry Christmas.
When? Maybe February 14, or why not, October 17. Because every day would be the right one to be happy.
Valeria Bellobono
