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[Regions of Italy] 
[Back to Christmas in Italy]
I moved to Rome in September, 1972. By Christmastime I had managed to befriend every shopowner and vegetable vendor in my neighborhood of Campo de' Fiori. The cicoria lady (who is still there today, her hands only slightly more gnarled by constant exposure to cold water) had taught me to boil greens at length in copious amounts of water, keeping their vibrant color by adding a pinch of bicarbonate of soda. The waiters at La Carbonara had reserved a seat for me at their twelve o'clock lunch table (those were the good old days when lunch cost less than $1.00). And Sor Giovanni, the aging playboy who owned the “antique” furniture emporium in Piazza del Paradiso, had energetically helped me furnish my minuscule third-floor apartment with hand-me-downs and leftovers from the defunct bourgeois widows whose attics he regularly raided.
There was one mission that had eluded Sor Giovanni: perhaps in a tribute to his own early glory years, he had dreamed of getting me a real four-poster bed. As if by miracle, he managed to find one in early December, and so it was that when I answered my doorbell at sundown on Christmas eve, I found not a friend nor a neighbor, but an enormous mattress. Sor Giovanni's balding head soon appeared on the impossibly narrow steps, followed by two bedposts and his younger son Massimo, who had often made it clear to me that he intended to inherit his father's business and his amatory reputation.
Assembling the bed took them several hours and two bottles of rosso, and when it was done it filled my entire bedroom. We shoved the old bed out into the living room, along with the night stands and the freestanding wardrobe Sor Giovanni had found in November, abandoned on the Via Appia Nuova. I soon learned to treat my new bedroom like a swimming pool, opening the door and diving headlong onto that big, lumpy but oh-so-romantic bed.
At this point I was left with un piccolo problema: how to dispose of the old bed and night stands (the wardrobe had found a rather improbable home in a corner of the kitchen). “Non ti preoccupare!” said Sor Giovanni. “Don't worry! We will throw them out on New Year's Eve!” When pressed for details he responded with a phrase I later came to dread in Rome: “Ci penso io” (I'll take care of everything). Somewhat dubious but unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth, I acquiesced and spent the next few days visiting nativity scenes and eating way too much rich food.
Sor Giovanni showed up (alone this time) at exactly 11:30 p.m. on December 31. Aching with curiosity, I helped him dismantle the old bed. We pulled the now emptied drawers out of the night stands and then, as church bells began to ring in the New Year, Sor Giovanni flung open my windows. I was sure he wanted me to enjoy the exquisite bronzen symphony, but he was shocked when I dreamily leaned out into the crisp night air. Sor Giovanni may have been a playboy, but he had never been a romantic, and this I discovered when he suddenly rushed towards me, wielding a night stand over his head. I leapt out of his way at the very last minute and gaped in horror as he hurled the unfortunate castoff straight through the open window, then turned to me with beaming countenance as a deafening crash ensued. That was my first encounter with the very Italian custom of “throwing out the old year.”
Naturally, Sor Giovanni was as crushed as the night stand when I refused to let him jettison all my unwanted furniture. He wailed that it would bring me bad luck for 1973. He scoffed at my fears for safety, assuring me no decent person would be on the street at midnight of New Year's. He calmed my civic concerns, countering that I would actually be helping the garbagemen of Rome earn triple overtime on New Year's morning. He forced me to look for myself and watch as - I swear it - a refrigerator sailed out of the building across the street. He even resorted to guilt, reminding me what tremendous efforts he had made on my behalf.
Much has changed now. Sor Giovanni died about a decade ago and every merchant in the neighborhood shut down for his funeral. Massimo sold the shop, which has since hosted an endless series of unsuccessful cafés, cursed, I have always maintained, by that invincible Playboy in the Sky. Lunch at La Carbonara costs about $15.00. But one thing remains unchanged in Rome, so my advice to you this year and every year is to remember Sor Giovanni's words: “No decent person would be on the street at midnight of New Year's!”
[Regions of Italy] [Back to Christmas in Italy]