In Italy, Easter is known as “the feast of feasts” and is more important than Christmas. Easter marks the resurrection of Christ – the heart of the Christian story. Christmas celebrates Christ’s birth, but Easter is the reason that birth matters.

You can feel it in the days of Holy Week that lead up to it. Churches fill, bells echo through the streets, and towns come alive with processions and reenactments of the crucifixion. From Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday, there’s a sense of anticipation. Everything softens on Pasquetta, the Monday after Easter, when people picnic in the fresh air and enjoy the warmth of a burgeoning spring.

But more than anything, Easter is about gathering. Families and friends arrive, and the day unfolds slowly around the table. There’s time for conversation, laughter, and the quiet comfort of being together.

And then there’s food. Lamb roasting, spring vegetables, slices of Colomba di Pasqua – a soft, dove-shaped cake symbolizing peace and renewal – are passed around at the end of the meal. Children delight in breaking open large chocolate eggs to discover the surprises hidden inside.

In Florence, the celebration returns to a tradition dating back to the late 1400s: the Scoppio del Carro, or Explosion of the Cart. A team of white oxen pulls a towering, 30-foot cart through the streets, stopping in front of the Duomo. During Mass, the priest lights a mechanical dove that shoots from the church’s high altar to ignite the cart in a burst of fireworks. It’s loud, sudden, and dazzling—a symbol of faith, renewal, and hope for the year ahead.

Buona Pasqua! I hope your Easter was filled with joy and a sense of renewal. And if it wasn’t, I wish you peace with the onset and beauty of spring.