Besides the presents and the tree and the ornaments, an overwhelming theme of the holiday season is food. Lots of delicious holiday food! It’s the time when we gobble up mouth-watering turkey, buttery mashed potatoes, crisp green beans, crumbly cobbler—you name it! We even make houses out of gingerbread. All around the world Christmas has different traditional foods. In Spain, they have the rosca de reyes, a sweet bread eaten during the holidays. In Germany, they eat Christstollen, a type of raisin-filled cake roll. We took a little “trip” to check out Italy during the holidays for the 11th day of our 12 Books of Christmas.

 Strega Nona’s Gift is a story that takes place during the holidays—or rather, during the feast days! Everyone is busy cooking and getting ready for different feasts. Strega Nona even prepares food for the animals on the Eve of Epifania and her assistant, Big Anthony, simply can’t resist stealing a taste…or two…or three! He gets himself into quite a silly predicament, which—well, you’ll just have to read the story to find out what happens. The book has the same quaint illustrations and bits of Italian culture that we’ve come to love about dePaola’s Strega Nona series, though it does have the added side effect of making tummies growl.

Strega Nona’s Gift is available in Seesaw December.

Tags: Christmas, Holiday, Seasonal Reads