supadupabrickAfter spending late November and early December doing holiday concerts, Alessia Cara is looking forward to some time off for Christmas — and some good, homemade Italian food.
“I usually get Christmas off because thankfully all record labels close around Christmas…yesssss!” she laughs. “No emails, no nothing, it’s amazing! It’s like a desert.”
That means Alessia is free to go back home to Canada and join her family for the holiday. Because both her parents are Italian, the singer, born Alessia Caracciolo, tells ABC Radio that a lot of her family traditions are based on those of La Bella Italia.
“We don’t have meat on Christmas Eve,” she ticks off. “We open gifts at midnight instead of Christmas Day. [And] I don’t really do this but…my grandma does gifts on January 7.”
Alessia explains, “There’s this whole thing, like, this older lady went to go visit Jesus but she was seven days late…or she was a week late or something, so you do a gift a week later. But yeah, we do little Italian traditions for sure, that’s a huge part of our culture.”
Alessia is likely referring to the Italian folklore figure La Befana, a old woman who brings children gifts on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, usually held the Sunday after January 1.
In addition to those Italian traditions, Alessia says she’s really looking forward to another one: great food. And as she explains, in her house, it’s not just about the traditional Christmas ham.
“My mother makes these baked, breaded eggplant things that are unbelievable,” Alessia gushes. “And then my grandma makes really good fried shrimp…like, fried breaded shrimp. She’ll just make these giant, giant pans full of fried shrimp — and it’s just really delicious.”
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