The magic of Neapolitan Christmas told by writer Maurizio de Giovanni

The Christmas season is approaching: cities light up and the atmosphere becomes increasingly festive.

Christmas has always been a time to reflect on the year that is ending and to spend time with loved ones, rediscovering traditions that have accompanied families for generations.

This is particularly true in Southern Italy, where students and workers who have moved elsewhere for study or work return home to embrace their families again.

In Naples, Christmas is celebrated with great passion and enthusiasm. To share the spirit of this holiday, we have the pleasure of interviewing Maestro Maurizio de Giovanni.

Dear Maestro, welcome to InItaly. It’s a pleasure to have you here with us to talk about Neapolitan Christmas traditions. Let’s start by asking: have you prepared the nativity scene? How are you getting ready to spend this Christmas?

In my house, the cats are in charge, and they have a rather “dynamic” relationship with the figurines. As soon as they see a shepherd, they mistake him for prey; the ox and the donkey become ping-pong balls, and Baby Jesus inevitably ends up under the sofa, where he reigns until Easter.
So I give up on decorations: I choose domestic peace.

I still live Christmas the same way as everyone who has more memories than time: with a bit of nostalgia, much gratitude, and the desire to see loved ones, even just for a hug.

If you had to describe in one of your books how Neapolitans celebrate Christmas, how would you describe it?

In fact, I’ve already done so. In Per mano mia I tried to tell that Neapolitan Christmas which is not just a date on the calendar, but a way of being in the world. Because in Naples, Christmas is not celebrated—it is lived through.

It is a time when the city seems to breathe more slowly. The streets fill with lights that not only illuminate but somehow console.

And then there is the return: of students, workers, children who live far away—as if an invisible thread, a genetic nostalgia, brings them back to the port from which every story begins.

In my view, it is a holiday that does not demand perfection, but presence, and is based on an ancient certainty: no one should be alone on Christmas night.

Referring to a great classic of De Filippo’s theater, do you think Natale in Casa Cupiello is still relevant today?

It is more relevant than we are. Because it doesn’t tell of just any Christmas, but of the eternal one: the Christmas of families who try to love each other and don’t always succeed. Families in which everyone speaks a slightly different language, but where even a nativity scene—or the attempt to make one—reminds them that they belong to each other anyway.

Eduardo managed to express the simplest truth: no Christmas is perfect, but every Christmas resembles us.

Looking ahead to Christmas, which dishes of Neapolitan culinary tradition do you enjoy most?

To be honest, the typical fish-based menu doesn’t appeal to me. I know, in Naples that’s almost a mortal sin, especially at Christmas.

So I focus on what I truly enjoy finding on the table: a good gateau, baked pasta done properly, vegetables prepared with care. And then the traditional sweets: struffoli, roccocò, mustaccioli. Those must never be missing.

Given the current geopolitical context, what Christmas wish would you like to make for the world?

I would like to wish something simple, and precisely for that reason increasingly rare: kindness. Not the formal, superficial kind, but authentic kindness, which requires courage. The kindness of listening before judging, of stepping back when needed, of seeing people as individuals and not as categories. It may seem small, almost naïve, but it is not at all: it is the foundation on which everything else is built.

If we were a little kinder—with strangers, with those who live next to us, and even with ourselves—many conflicts, big and small, would deflate on their own. My wish is to recover kindness as a daily habit. It is a silent but powerful revolution.

It has been a pleasure to have you with us. We hope you can spend a joyful Christmas surrounded by the love of your family.