Brochures that sell Rome in December as a Christmas-market break have it confused with Vienna. There is one market worth the name, in Piazza Navona, and ten minutes covers it. What the city takes seriously this month is the presepe, the nativity scene, and its churches are full of them. With highs around 14°C and close to seven hours of sun a day, it is good weather for walking from one to the next between showers.
Plan around 8 December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. At dawn the city's firefighters send an aerial ladder up the column beside Piazza di Spagna and lay flowers on the arm of the Virgin at the top. In the afternoon the Pope comes to pray at its foot, and the streets round the Spanish Steps fill solid. If you are not there for that, stay west of Via del Corso.
The same day, the 100 Presepi exhibition opens under the left arm of Bernini's colonnade in St Peter's Square. Well over a hundred cribs arrive from Italy and around the world, made of terracotta and wood but also glass and banana fibre. Entry is free and needs no booking, and it beats any stall selling fridge magnets.
Plenty of visitors photograph the Vittoriano and never climb the 124 steps beside it to Santa Maria in Aracoeli, which holds the crib Romans care about most. From Christmas to Epiphany the Santo Bambino, a jewelled figure of the infant Jesus, takes its place in the nativity scene, and children climb onto a little stage opposite to recite poems to it. The original was stolen from the church and has never been found, so the figure they address is a copy. On 6 January it is carried out to bless the city, and down in Piazza Navona the stalls pack up the same day.