Facciamo festa

Let's celebrate

Et volià les fetes

La Sagra (Patron Saint’s feast)

The feast begins the day before with a procession of lights all around the streets of the village or town. On the day itself there are several Masses during the morning, but the most important one, the High Mass, is in the evening.

Usually the families invite their relatives living in other villages to a big lunch. This is an opportunity for them to meet and spend the day happily together.

According to custom, you should eat "tortelli", a typical dish made of pasta with a sweet-savoury stuffing.

During the whole day there are stalls where you can buy whatever you like: candies or toys, cassettes or your favourite team’s flags. In the afternoon, games are organized in the squares, such as the greasy pole: the pole is raised in the middle of the square and you have to climb it to get the gifts at the top and throw them to the people below; jack race or "pentolaccia": blind-folded children have to break some terracotta pots full of flour, water and sweets hanging on a rope. The lucky one is the child who succeeds in breaking the right pot full of sweets. It goes without saying that this is a day of great fun for everyone. In the past, it was the only opportunity for young people to make friends and, sometimes, even meet the future spouse. Since the Patron Saint’s Day is on different dates in the various villages, they used to go to all the nearby villages on their Patron Saint’s day.

(torna sù)

Carnival

PARTIES: There are fancy dress parties on Shrove Tuesday and for children on Thursday before Lent. Sometimes some discos organize parties where you have to go in fancy dress.

JOKES: Watch out for jokes, especially foam and rotten eggs, being thrown around!

FOOD: There are some kinds of pancakes: "chiacchiere" or "frittelle", crispy, very light sort of pancakes, "chisulì", more spongy and with a sort of custard and raisins filling, and chestnut cakes.

See recipe for "chiacchiere".

Schools, parishes, public associations but also groups of friends build handmade floats. People start making them months before the parade because there is a lot of work to do. In fact, they need tractors, paper maché, paint and above all lots of money and lots of people.

These floats are based on different topics (for instance political satire, nature, other countries, etc.).

Members of the community are asked to take part in the parade on these handmade floats. They also have to make themselves up and wear fancy dress. Also the people who attend the parade usually dress up and throw confetti and streamers.

By the way, the typical character from Crema is, in our dialect, "al gaget col so uchet". This mask was invented by Cecchino Risari in 1955 and it represents a peasant coming to Crema market to sell his geese. He wears a black and worn suit, a pair of socks with red and white stripes (the colours of Crema), a pair of clogs, and he carries a basket with a goose.

(torna sù)

During the float parade at Carnival (February), if you are lucky, you will meet the typical costume of the city: "al Gagèt col so uchet". It represents a peasant holding a basket with a goose in it.

St Maria’s Fair

The first fair was held in 1666. Since the population had to pay lots of taxes, they were allowed to organize a free market once a year, at the beginning of the spring, in order to support the families.

They used to exchange linen and hand-made clothes near the Sanctuary because the sacred place had always attracted people. In fact the Sanctuary has been built on the place where, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared.

At the end of March there’s the "fair of S. Maria". Along the avenue leading to the church there are stalls and a fun fair. According to folklore it always rains during the fair.

Now the fair is the most impotant and most representative and popular feast in our area. Along the main avenue leading to the Sanctuary there are hundreds of stalls selling virtually anything, from items of clothing to toys. Special foods are sold during the fair, and the air is full of these flavours:

• "frittelle", sort of pancakes
• "zucchero filato" (candy floss)
• "torrone" (nougat)
• "tiramolla" (tug-o-war)

There are also lots of street games:

• "pesca" (lucky dip) where you can win teddy bears, plants and little goldfish or other things.
• "Giostre" (merry-go-rounds), young people’s games such as fun fairs, the flying octopus and dodgem cars.

It goes without saying that on these days the streets of St Maria are packed full with people of any age. The fair attracts people not just from Crema but from a wider area. It usually marks the beginning of the Spring.

(torna sù)

Easter

The week before Easter is full of traditional celebrations:

• On Holy Thursday the parish priest washes the feet of 12 children (embodying the 12 Apostoles) who are preparing to receive their First Communion.
• On Good Friday evening there is a procession through the main streets and after this the bells are tied to prevent them from ringing. This is done to remind us of Christ’s death.
• On Saturday there is the blessing of eggs and in the evening the Easter vigil.
• Christ’s Resurrection is celebrated on Easter Sunday with a solemn Mass.

There are usually big family lunches (a traditional dish on easter Sunday is lamb) and children break their chocolate eggs. A traditional cake is the "colomba", a spongy cake in the shape of a dove.

On Easter Monday, if the weather is good, some families have their first picnic in the country.

(torna sù)

Ferragosto (Midsummer Bank Holiday - 15th August)

Ferragosto is actually an ancient Roman feast celebrating mid-summer but today it is the Catholic holiday of Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven.

However, in Crema Ferragosto also means a meeting in one of the many squares to eat "tortelli". For the past 12 years, in fact, every 14th to 17th August, a "tortellata" in Piazza Aldo Moro has taken place. You can eat tortelli, the typical local dish. In the evening there are different entertainment bands, dancers and singers, that perform in the square.

In August there are hardly any people in Crema.

During the day young people usually go to the swimming pool or sunbathing on the banks of the Vacchelli canal.

(torna sù)

All Saints' day

November 1st (All Saints’ Day) is a bank holiday and on the following day (2nd) we remember the Dead, as it is called All Souls’Day.

Many people go to church on both days and then to the cemetery where Masses are said daily during the whole week. The chrysanthemum is the typical flower, and people take bunches of them to their relatives’ graves.

This is also a time for family reunions. There can be meals where traditional dishes are served such as "salamini dei morti" ( a kind of salame), "fagiolini con gli occhi" (a special bean dish) and "ossa dei morti", a sweet called "Bones of the Dead".

(torna sù)

St Lucy (13th December)

Lucy was a beautiful young girl from Siracusa, Sicily. She was engaged to a rich young gentleman, but she decided to break the engagement because of the miraculous recovery of her mother, which she considered as God’s sign.

Her fiancé didn’t resign himself to losing Lucy, who had devoted herself to God, so he decided to denounce her as a Christian to the Proconsul. She was questioned, tortured and then killed by a blow to her throat. Because of this, for a long time she was considered in the Catholic world the Patron of throats. Later it bacame known that her persecutors had cut her eyes out. So Lucy became the Patron of eyes.

St Lucy is celebrated in Crema because our town was part of the Republic of Venice. The relics of the saint are in fact now kept in Venice. In Crema it is St Lucy, and not Father Christmas, that brings presents to children.

The day before the 13th December, in the late evening, children, together with their parents, put out something to eat, such as apples and biscuits, and they belive that they are offering food to St. Lucy. Someone also puts out water and hay for her donkey. If you walk along the streets of Crema during the week preceding December 13th, look up: you’ll see lots of bunches of hay hung up at the windows. They have blue or pink ribbons according to the sex of the child living in that house. When children are asleep their mothers put everything back in place.

In the morning, when the children wake up and find presents instead of the food, they are happy because they think that St Lucy has eaten what they had put out the evening before.

Older children enjoy themselves going behind the doors of houses ringing a bell so that small children believe that St Lucy’s donkey is arriving.

In some villages it is traditional to have stalls selling sweets and toys a day or two before the feast day.

(torna sù)

Chritsmas day

One of the most important events of Christmas is the great traditional dinner on Christmas Eve, generally celebrated with relatives. Some typical specialities served are capon and eel. There are famous cakes and desserts, such as panettone, a kind of spiced coffee cake with sultanas and nougat, a sweet made of almonds and honey.

Cremona is the principal producer of nougat in Italy (it is possible to visit the factory and actually taste it!) and also of "mostarda", a local sweet and sour sauce eaten with boiled meats.

After dinner many families attend the "Midnight Mass" in their local church.

(torna sù)

New year's eve

On that day families usually prepare very long and enormous dinners.

The usual menu includes "cotechino" a boiled stuffed pork’s foot, with lentils. It si a tradition that, if one eats lentils on the first day of the year, that person will have a lot of money throughout the year.

When midnight arrives, people usually toast the New Year with sparkling wine and eat "Panettone" or "Pandoro", two traditional Christmas cakes.

Another tradition is that everyone on New Year’s Eve has to wear something red and not to wear it again. (This doesn’t apply if it is a leap year!)

On New Year’s Day you should throw something old away and the first person you meet should be a man. (...)

(torna sù)