The Italian Night More Magical Than Christmas Eve — And It Involves a Witch

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In Italy, there is a night more eagerly anticipated by children than Christmas Eve. It falls on the fifth of January. And the guest of honour is not a jolly man in red — she is an old woman on a broomstick, and her name is La Befana.

Who Is La Befana?

La Befana is one of Italy’s most beloved and ancient traditions, celebrated every year on the night of 5th January — the eve of Epiphany, or La Festa della Befana. According to legend, she is a kindly old witch who flies through the night sky on a broomstick, slipping down chimneys to fill children’s stockings with sweets, chocolate, and small gifts.

Her name derives from “Epifania” — the Feast of the Epiphany, marking the arrival of the Three Wise Men. In Italian folk tradition, La Befana was invited to join the Magi on their journey to Bethlehem, but declined. Too busy with her sweeping. Later, regretting her choice, she set off alone carrying a sack of gifts, searching for the Christ child. She has been searching ever since — leaving presents for every child she meets along the way.

It is a story that contains everything Italians love: a stubborn, independent woman; a touch of the supernatural; and an act of generosity repeated endlessly across the centuries. Much like the Italian nonna who still stirs her Sunday ragù, La Befana is a figure who endures precisely because she cannot be rushed.

The Night Italian Children Cannot Sleep

On the evening of 5th January, Italian families hang stockings by the fireplace — not on Christmas Eve, but now. Children leave out a glass of wine and a plate of food for La Befana (she prefers something hearty to milk and biscuits). Then, tradition insists, they go to bed early. She will not visit if she suspects they are watching.

Good children wake to find their stockings stuffed with sweets, mandarins, chocolate, and little toys. Naughty children, the legend warns, receive only carbone — lumps of coal. These days, carbone dolce, sweet coal made from sugar and black food colouring, is sold in shops all over Italy, letting parents deliver the gentle moral without any real disappointment.

The stocking is everything. Not the wrapped parcel under the tree — the stocking, hung in the dark, filled by an old woman nobody ever sees.

How Italy Celebrates

Across Italy, 5th January brings fairs, parades, and festive markets. Venice holds a famous La Befana regatta along the Grand Canal, with rowers in costume racing by torchlight. In Rome, Piazza Navona transforms into a market for weeks beforehand, stalls piled with toys, sweets, and bags of carbone dolce.

Naples — where tradition always runs particularly deep — dresses entire streets in honour of La Befana. Local pastry shops produce seasonal sweets in her likeness, and in many southern Italian families, 6th January rivals Christmas Day itself for celebration and feasting.

For anyone already in Italy over the Christmas period, lovetovisititaly.com has all the inspiration you need to plan your time around these extraordinary local celebrations.

Where the Story Gets Complicated

Here is where Italian tradition reveals its layered, wonderful complexity. Some historians trace La Befana not to Christian Epiphany at all, but to ancient Roman Kalends — the January new year festivals of the pre-Christian calendar. The gift-giving crone, arriving to sweep out the old year and bring in the new, appears in folk traditions across much of ancient Europe.

The Church absorbed and adapted the figure, connecting her to Epiphany over many centuries. But Italians have always kept her distinctly earthy and particular. She is not a saint. She is not a pixie. She is an old woman with a broom and a full sack, doing her rounds. You can read more about how deep Italian superstition and folk belief run beneath the surface of daily life — La Befana is very much part of that same current.

Italy’s folk culture is built on layers: Roman, Christian, regional, pagan. La Befana sits comfortably across all of them, belonging entirely to none.

A Tradition Worth Experiencing

Visitors in Italy over the holiday period often overlook 6th January entirely, catching flights home on the fifth. That, say Italians, is a mistake. The streets are full, pastry counters overflow with cioccolata calda and almond sweets, and there is a particular magic in the air quite different from the Christmas rush.

Experiencing La Befana means experiencing Italy in one of its most intimate traditions: a story told to every child, a stocking hung in cautious hope, and an old woman on a broomstick who, for one January night, is the most important person in the country. It is, in the very best Italian way, completely absurd and utterly beautiful at the same time.

If you are planning a trip during the holiday season, our guide to Italy’s remarkable regional traditions will give you a taste of what to expect across different parts of the country.

The Last Night of Italian Christmas

La Befana endures not because Italy is nostalgic, but because Italians understand something that the modern world keeps trying to forget: magic is worth protecting, especially for children. And so, every year on the night of the fifth, stockings are hung, wine is poured beside the fireplace, and somewhere in the Italian sky, an old woman on a broomstick is making her rounds.

If you are lucky enough to be in Italy on 6th January, stay. The best part of Christmas is just beginning.

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