On Monte Amiata Christmas has always been celebrated with fire. Fire stands for the sun, warms up, purifies and represents spirituality and rebirth.

This powerful element is the heart of important celebrations in the period of winter solstice, when it is colder and there is less light: the torch-lights of Abbadia San Salvatore is on the 24th of December, whereas on the other slope the torch-light procession of Santa Fiora is on the 30th of December. 

It seems the torch-lights of Abbadia San Salvatore go back to the Middle Age when the devotees lit fires in the square of the monastery to warm themselves during the Christmas vigil and pay homage to the abbot. The torch-light tradition is still alive and every year in this period preparations are in full swing and stacks of wood are put up in the village: they will be lit on the night of Christmas Eve enveloping Abbadia San Salvatore in a unique and magic atmosphere.
The accurate preparation of light-torches involves grown-ups and children guided by the light-torch-head who directs the work wisely. The wood is put in characteristic pyramidal stack which can be even 4 metre high. 

On Christmas Eve the torches are alighted from above and keep burning until dawn. At midnight the village empties out because everybody goes to church for Christmas mass; but immediately after the celebrations start again around the fire where people sing typical pastoral songs, drink wine, eat chestnut polenta and grilled sausages, and dance accompanied by accordions and bagpipes. According to tradition the morning after the embers are collected and kept because it is of good omen. 

The torch-light procession of Santa Fiora, on the 30th of December, is considered as a real rite of initiation for the young to the adulthood. The young, accompanied by their fathers and grandfathers, walk in procession holding the torches, a chestnut wood stick with big bunches of briar. The young wave the torches in the air to chase away the evil and the darkness with a magic rite celebrated with fire, propitiatory for the incoming year: this tradition goes back to the peasant civilization when the survival depended on a good harvest. 

The torches follow one after the other in a beautiful medieval hamlet and in the nearby hamlets and light big charcoal piles (real piles of trunks) in the squares and next to churches, in front of which it is possible to have some chestnut polenta and some red wine.
For further information we suggest to read the interesting book Abbadia San Salvatore, La Fiaccule (edited by Giuseppe Sani, Edizioni Effigi) or ask to the Tourist Office of Monte Amiata (tel. 0577 775811).