CARO BABBO NATALE...

This is an article of mine which was published in Italy Magazine on Wednesday. I have found something good to say about the Post Office!

CARO BABBO NATALE….

A special letterbox has been set up in the post office in Rome’s Piazza San Silvestro for children to post their letters to Father Christmas and Poste italiane estimates that our red-coated, white-bearded friend will receive around 130,000 letters from children in Italy this year. Each child who posts a letter in the box will receive a personal reply from one of the postini di Babbo Natale [Father Christmas’s postmen] together with a sticker and a colouring book.

The letters, addressed to destinations such as “Father Christmas’s Ministry” – perhaps a politician’s son wrote that one – Via del Polo Nord, Via delle Stelle [Star Street] or Via Lattea [the Milky Way] express the various desires of children in the twenty-first century [which do not seem so very different from the desires of children in the twentieth or even the nineteenth century]: Some want a bike, others a horse, one wants a whole wild boar for his family to consume at Christmas lunch [he didn’t say whether he wants it ready-cooked] whilst more pensive young souls ask for peace, love or good health and the more practical for a million-euro lottery win.

This is not the first year that Poste italiane has replied to children’s letters to Santa and now it has published a book containing some of the best Santa letters of recent years. Proceeds will go to the non-governmental charity Amici dei Bambini [AiBi] which has been working, since 1986, to defend the rights of abandoned children to be brought up in a family environment. AiBi works in Italy and in 26 other countries as far apart as Eastern Europe and the Americas. The book, called Io ci credo che esisti [I Believe you Exist] is available in post offices, on the internet at

http://www.ecom.posteshop.it/ECOMM02/catalog_product.aspx?ProductID=99aa&Catalog=PT00_POSTESHOP

and on the AiBi site. In addition to the children’s letters the book contains a previously unpublished story and illustrations by the children’s writer Chiara Rapaccini.

Traditionally it is the Befana [a good witch] who brings children small presents on January 6th in Italy but now a lot of families use the Father Christmas tradition as well. Do you think this is a good idea or does it make an Italian Christmas less special?

UPDATE: 25.12.09

Since writing the article I have seen the book and the letter that touched me most contains this wish:

"Vorrei che tu andassi a salutare e a fare felice ogni terremotato che non ha niente ed ha perso i genitori..." "I want you to go and see and bring happiness to every child who lost their possessions and their parents in the earthquake..."