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Christmas market · Alessandria

Natale ad Alessandria — Paese di Babbo Natale

Alessandria's Christmas season: the 'Paese di Babbo Natale' with its wooden market huts and shows for children in Piazza della Libertà, the big city tree, smaller Christmas markets around the centre, concerts in the churches, a children's New Year's Eve and the city's own nativity play, Gelindo.

Why it's special

Besides the market and the lights, Alessandria has its own Christmas character: Gelindo, the shepherd of the 'Divota Cumedia', a nativity play in dialect staged every Christmas season at the Teatro San Francesco, where it reached its hundredth run in December 2024.

Programme · 2025

29 November 2025 – 11 January 2026

'Alessandria si Illumina', the Comune's Christmas programme, until 6 January, with the Paese di Babbo Natale in Piazza della Libertà until 11 January.

Sat 29 November, 15:00
opening of the Paese di Babbo Natale market in Piazza della Libertà (20 wooden huts, then daily 10:00–20:00 from 30 November to 23 December, 24 December until 17:00), with the 'Family Christmas Show'
Tue 2 December
the big city Christmas tree lit in Piazza della Libertà; Thu 4 December, 17:30 – tree lighting in Piazza Garibaldi
7–8 December
'Magie di Natale' market in Via Carlo Alberto; Sat 13 December – Christmas market in Via Dante; Mon 29 December – Bazar di Natale in the cloister of Santa Maria di Castello
Weekends 30 November
11 January – 'Mattina con gli Elfi' workshops; from 19 December – 'Elforia Show' in Piazza della Libertà
Concerts
Joy Gospel Singers (14 Dec, Via San Lorenzo), P. Voices and a gospel-and-Blues-Brothers tribute (20 Dec), Coro Ave Nahele (21 Dec, Santa Lucia), the Conservatorio Vivaldi symphony orchestra (22 Dec, Auditorium Pittaluga), the Banda Civica 'G. Cantone' (7 and 13 Dec)
25 December
11 January – Gelindo, 'La Divota Cumedia', in Via San Francesco d'Assisi 15 (25, 26 Dec and 5, 10 Jan at 21:00; 4, 6, 11 Jan at 15:00)
Wed 31 December, 16:00
'Capodanno dei bambini' in Piazza della Libertà; Thu 1 January, 18:00 – 'Note di magia!' concert at the Teatro Alessandrino with the magician Jack Nobile, the guitarist Adriano Del Sal and the Cameristi dell'Orchestra Classica di Alessandria
Tue 6 January, 15:30
'La befana sui trampoli', Spinetta Marengo
A tip
  • The market in Piazza della Libertà is the centre of it all: in 2025 it ran daily 10:00–20:00 from 30 November to 23 December, closing at 17:00 on Christmas Eve, while the children's shows carried on in the square until 11 January.
  • Look out for the Gelindo performances between 25 December and mid-January.
  • The full programme is published by the Comune in late November.

At Christmas Alessandria centres its celebrations on Piazza della Libertà, the big square in front of the town hall. The Comune sets up the Paese di Babbo Natale there: around twenty wooden huts selling gifts and Christmas food from the end of November until Christmas Eve, the city's large tree, and shows and workshops for children that carry on until after Epiphany.

Around it the centre has smaller markets on single days, in Via Carlo Alberto, Via Dante and the cloister of Santa Maria di Castello, plus a run of choir, gospel and band concerts in the churches and squares. New Year's Eve has a children's party in the square, and the season closes with the Befana on 6 January.

The most Alessandrian part of it is Gelindo. La Divota Cumedia is a nativity play in dialect, known in print since 1832 in a Monferrato and an Alessandria version: the shepherd Gelindo leaves home to be counted in the census and meets Joseph and Mary on the road without recognising them. It is staged every year at the Teatro San Francesco, in Via San Francesco d'Assisi, between Christmas and mid-January; 25 December 2024 was its hundredth opening night, and the takings go to a charity canteen that serves dinner to some 150 people a day.

More events in Monferrato in November 2025 →

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