Christmas in Vatican City

Interesting!

In addition to the public events, Pope Benedict celebrates Christmas privately with the members of his papal household.

"We celebrate Christmas together, listen to the holiday music, and exchange gifts," he said in the recent book-length interview "Light of the World."

The close-knit papal family includes Pope Benedict's two secretaries and a small group of women from the Memores Domini lay community who care for the papal apartment. Unfortunately, this holiday season has been marked with the loss of one of the Pope's close collaborators, Manuela Camagni, who died Nov. 24 after she was struck by a car.

A close friend of the Pope still delivers traditional Bavarian food every Christmas season. Thaddaeus Joseph Kuehnel, a German banker in Munich, has spent the past 28 years hand-delivering the Pope's favourite sweets and sausages from Bavaria.

Kuehnel told Catholic News Service he was driving to Rome the week before Christmas to deliver Bavarian sausages from the Pope's favourite restaurant, Franziskaner, special mustard, and sweets from the Zentis food company, which specializes in marzipan and jams.

The papal goodie bag also includes cakes and cookies that cloistered nuns baked specifically for the Pope, Kuehnel said in a Dec. 8 interview.

He will load his car with five Bavarian Christmas trees for the Pope and will personally deliver the gifts and have dinner with the Pope, he said.

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Almost every Vatican office has its own Nativity scene, some made from unusual materials.

The Swiss Guards, for example, use eight German beer crates for the scene's base and an empty munitions box for the grotto, to symbolize that the only weapon a Christian needs is Christ.