In many parts of Italy, the Christmas season begins not with decorations but with the lighting of a fire. The falò dell’Avvento is an older custom than most modern Christmas traditions, and in some valleys and villages, it remains the gesture that marks the shift from late fall to the weeks leading up to Christmas.
The practice varies from town to town, but the basic idea is the same: communities gather around a large pile of wood, branches, and garden cuttings, and set it alight at dusk, sometimes on the first Sunday of Advent, sometimes closer to Christmas.n occasion to clean fields and orchards before winter.
