The eve of Christmas Eve

This morning there were only a few people on the bus (looks like a lot of folks have left town for the holidays) and the traffic was minimal, so that the bus arrived at Piazza Sempione ten minutes early. I didn't want to ring the bell at the Sisters' convent too early, so I walked up and down the Via Nomentana for ten minutes.

It was a good thing for me: early morning exercise in zero-degree weather. I noticed the shops have a little bit more Christmas decorations than they did at the start of the week. There is a small coffee shop that I pass every morning, and I saw that the propriator and his wife were both wearing Santa Claus hats as they prepared coffees and put the baked goods in the glass counter. They are both in their 70s, I would guess.

Now, I thought, this is a scene that you'd never have seen 30 years ago. At that time the Italians never had "Babbo Natale" (Father Christmas - Santa Claus), and no one had a Christmas tree. Even 15 years ago nobody knew anything about the Advent Wreath: I used one for a prayer service in Advent 1990 at the University and had to write an explanation of the symbol and the custom because it was so foreign to the Italians. Instead, in December 2005, most parishes have the Advent Wreath, you see Christmas trees everywhere (even if they are tiny). And even the oldtimers sport Santa hats.

As I walked I thought about all the folks complaining about the "consumer-oriented" Christmas. This is something that the Vatican is decrying nearly every day during Advent… but then I thought, it is the Vatican itself that brought this on. John Paul II brought the Christmas Tree to Italy from Poland. Yes, wonderful symbol, but foreign. To the Italians who had only see Christmas Trees in American movies, what did this say about Christmas? Maybe, unwittingly, it was the Vatican with a non-Italian pope which introduced these non-Italian symbols into Catholic Italy…

But as I thought this, I was starting to get numb in the zero-degree darkness. I checked my watch, it was 6:34… good enough. I rushed to the convent door and pressed the door bell. "Buon Giorno!" Five minutes later I was vested and we started the liturgy, but I made no comments about commercialized Christmas.