If you plan on ever celebrating the winter holidays in Italy, you'll want to familiarise yourself with this Italian Christmas vocabulary.

Starting on December 8th and not finishing until January 6th, Christmas is a big deal in Italy, and there’s a whole festive lexicon that goes with it.

Here are some words you’ll want to learn in order to celebrate Christmas (and New Year’s) like an Italian.

Natale

Let’s start with the obvious – you can’t have an Italian Christmas without knowing the word for Christmas itself: Natale. It comes, as you might guess, from the Latin word for ‘born’, in reference to the birth of Jesus.

With Natale come a number of related words you should know. There’s Babbo Natale, Father Christmas; l’albero di Natale, a Christmas tree; cena di Natale, Christmas dinner; biglietti di Natale, Christmas cards; luci di Natale, Christmas lights; and la messa di Natale, Christmas mass.

When used as an adjective, natale becomes natalizio/ia/i/ie; so addobbi natalizi are Christmas ornaments.

Neve

If you’re in northern Italy this Christmas (or even some more mountainous parts of the centre-south), you may be lucky enough to experience neve, or snow.

Like ‘snow’, neve is an uncountable noun, meaning it doesn’t have a singular form in its own right. A fiocco di neve is a snowflake, and a pupazzo di neve is a snowman (literally, a snow doll).

To snow is nevicare, and if you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, that’s a direct translation into Italian: it’s a bianco Natale (or Natale bianco) you’re hoping for.

Slitta

Babbo Natale could never make it through all that neve without suitable transport options – he’ll need his trusty sleigh, or slitta.

And if your dream of waking up to a Natale bianco comes true and you want to imitate Santa on your own toboggan or sledge, you’ll be climbing into a slittino.

As you might be able to infer from these nouns, the verb slittare means to slide or slip. While this is very much a physical action engaged in by tobogganers, it can also be used figuratively – you’ll often see it crop up in Italian news headlines, referencing things like political deadlines being pushed (‘sliding’) back.

Know the rest of the Christmas words here:-
https://www.thelocal.it/20211221/ten-words-you-need-to-know-for-an-italian-christmas/