Pandoro or panettone? 5 American seminarians in Rome share their Christmas traditions

Rome Newsroom, Dec 23, 2024 / 17:45 pm

Christmas abroad for American seminarians studying in Rome can offer a chance to travel, serve Mass with the pope, or spend more time with their fellow students.

During the first three years of formation at the Pontifical North American College (NAC) on Rome’s Janiculum Hill, seminarians stay in Europe for the Christmas holiday and break from studies. During their last year as students, as ordained transitional deacons, they can go home.

Here’s what five NAC seminarians from the United States are doing this Christmas, what they’ve done in the past, and a little bit about their favorite Christmas hymns and traditions — including which traditional Italian Christmas sweet they prefer: pandoro or panettone.

Deacon Will Robbins, Diocese of Beaumont, Texas (fourth year at NAC)

Christmas this year: It’ll be a great joy to be able to go home this year after spending three Christmases away. I know I’ll be in my home parish, St. Ann Parish, for the about two weeks that I’m home, and the priest back home has already let me know I’ll be preaching and helping with Masses. So I’m just really looking forward to being able to one, be able to celebrate Christmas at home again, but also to be able to exercise diaconal ministry. It’ll be a great blessing to be able to be a deacon at home with my people that have supported me all these years and my faith community. I’m really looking forward to it.

Christmases past: I’ve done a whole mix of stuff. My first year was still COVID time, so it was not as easy to do stuff. That year I stayed in Rome itself for Christmas. We went to the Christmas Mass at 7 p.m. with the Holy Father, which turns out was his last full Mass to celebrate before he went into the wheelchair. So for me, that was a real grace to be able to be at that Mass and liturgy with him. We cooked ourselves a big breakfast dinner in the middle of the night afterward. And then that year, my family was supposed to come over for New Year, but because of COVID and all the testing, it got canceled at the last second. So a couple of us, we just found some stuff to do and visited some little towns around Rome and really got to make the city our own. During that time there weren’t as many pilgrims and travelers, so you could easily do things. It was a really great way to make Rome feel like home. 

Favorite Christmas tradition: As a kid, we would go to church on Christmas Eve, and then we’d come back and watch “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” while eating chicken and sausage gumbo. I’m from the Cajun part of Texas, down on the coast next to Louisiana, so you got these fun traditions thrown in. I tried to kind of bring it here [to the NAC] a little, so when we decorate our hallways for Christmas every year, I make a big pot of chicken and sausage gumbo to bring down to the hallway to have as we put the Christmas trees up and the lights, and just to bring that little bit of home to Rome.

Favorite Christmas song: At Christmas Mass, my favorite is “Adeste Fidelis.” It’s just such a grand hymn, and it’s so joyful. And they usually pull out all the stops on the organ. There’s just something about it that just lifts my soul up and kind of fills you deep inside with a lot of joy.

Pandoro vs. panettone: Pandoro, any day of the week. I am not a huge panettone fan, but I love a pandoro because you can dip it in your coffee.

Deacon Nathan Ledoux of the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island (third year at NAC)

Christmas this year: I’m going to Derry, Northern Ireland, to a parish that I served in my first summer [at the NAC]. I knew a priest in the Diocese of Derry, so he connected me and I was able to serve in their cathedral parish for a summer. So I’m going back to visit these folks for Christmas — which is a really great gift to me — and to see a bit of culture and learn about my own family. So it’ll be nice to reconnect with some folks at Christmas.

I’m getting petitions from home right now, so I’m going to bundle all those up and bring them to the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock. And I’m also planning to go to Fatima as well, to spend some time there in prayer and do a little kind of retreat in Portugal.

Christmases past: My first year I went to Paris with a couple of guys from [the NAC] and we knew a seminarian from the Foreign Mission Society of Paris who was serving in a parish, so we went to his parish Masses on Christmas Eve, which was just a wonderful time. They actually have a meal in between the Vigil Mass and the Mass during the Night for family or people who don’t have any family, who would not have a meal with somebody on Christmas. So we spent our Christmastime with these folks having a Christmas meal between our Masses in the evening. Last year I was actually in Rome, and I got to serve at Mass for the Holy Father, which was really great.

Favorite Christmas tradition: Something from home that we also continue here at the NAC is decorating. So actually our hallways [at the college] are decorated already for Christmas. But I think decorating, even when I did that as a kid, I knew something was coming. And even though I didn’t have a good understanding of what we were preparing for, the idea of putting up Christmas lights, the tree, having an Advent wreath and putting out little dolls and the Nativity scene and a little Christmas village, there was something really enjoyable about that, and I knew something important was coming.

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Favorite Christmas song: “In the Bleak Midwinter” has always been a favorite. It’s talking about Christ’s humility in coming to Earth and this kind of quiet way that he enters into life as a man. And I think there’s something really kind of austere and reserved about that hymn that allows me to enter into the mystery that is God becoming a man and dwelling among us.

Pandoro vs. panettone: Pandoro is nice, but panettone is great! And as soon as the 25th goes by, it’s really inexpensive to buy. So we just stock it up and you have that for weeks on end. It’s amazing. It also comes in so many flavors. I mean, you can get it covered in pistachio and other things.

Deacon Bryce Bowman, Diocese of Dallas (fourth year at NAC)

Christmas this year: I’m going back to the United States like the other deacons. My sister just had her first baby, so I’m going to go back and baptize my niece. 

Christmases past: The year before that, my whole family came to Rome: parents, sister, and brother-in-law. We were going to go to the Christmas Eve Mass with Pope Francis, which was great, but as soon as my parents arrived, they realized my dad’s luggage didn’t come, so then they had to fill out a ticket to be able to get that worked out. And it was getting so late, we didn’t think we’d be able to make the Mass, which would have been so sad. As we told our taxi driver, “just drive to the Vatican.” We all met at St. Peter’s Basilica. We said, OK, we’ll try to get in — it was only a half hour before Mass and it’s a very packed Mass — so we were one of the last ones to be let in. It was the first time for my family in Europe, so that was really special.

Favorite Christmas tradition: My favorite tradition at home is my family going to midnight Mass. That’s what we always went to. And I would always serve at it. I would hold the thurible, with the incense. And my dad would often be a lector, and then my sister would be an usher. So it was kind of a family affair to help out with midnight Mass.

Favorite Christmas song: I’ll say “Angels We Have Heard on High.” I like to think about the choirs of angels adoring Our Lord as an example for us to also adore him. It’s beautiful.

Pandoro vs. panettone: So panettone is as good as fruitcake, which is bad, in my opinion. I think pandoro is absolutely superior.

Deacon Nicholas (Nico) Stellpflug, Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin (fourth year at NAC)

Christmas this year: I will be going back home to see my family and be in the Diocese of Green Bay for two weeks. I’m looking forward to being a deacon in the diocese, something that you don’t get the opportunity to do unless just a little bit before ordination, and to see my family, especially my niece and nephew, who are 4 and 2. I’ll be at my home parish for all three of the Christmas Masses that we have. And then I’ll be at other parishes in the diocese.

Christmases past: My first year I stayed [in Rome] and I went to the Holy Father’s Mass on Christmas Eve, and then a friend of mine from seminary back in the States visited. Then the other two years, I’ve been to a couple different places. Probably my favorite was being in Paris, which was beautiful because it was Paris, but also because my godparents lived there for seven years and my cousins were there, their sons were born there. My younger cousin is a twin, but his twin sister died before childbirth and she’s buried there, so I was able to go and visit her grave for the first time on Christmas Day two years ago.

Favorite Christmas tradition: My favorite Christmas tradition from back home is making Christmas candies with my sister and my mom, something we always do together. It was fun to make the sweets and eat them, but also just to spend time together was something that we look forward to every year.

Favorite Christmas song: The thing that comes to mind is Mannheim Steamroller’s “Christmas Celebration” album. I just remember very clearly listening to that album with my family around Christmastime, and especially driving back from my grandma and grandpa’s house on Christmas Eve, we would always listen to that.

Pandoro vs. panettone: I think I would say a good panettone. I like “Tre Maria,” that’s a good one.

Andrew Chase, Archdiocese of Baltimore (third year at NAC)

Christmas this year: This year I am going up to northeast Italy to explore the area around Trieste, which I have heard a great deal about from Italians that I have met in Rome who have highly recommended it. One of the plans is to go to the ancient Christian basilica of Aquileia, which has a number of tremendous mosaics that show what perhaps the ancient Church imagined as they were contemplating the faith. Later on, I am planning on heading further east to Hungary. One of my hopes is to make it to the Greek Catholic Marian shrine of Mariapocs in the Northeast of the country.

Christmases past: In my first year, I went to Slovakia for a little over a week, going across the country trying to find any records about my great-grandmother. Not much in my family was known about her except that she came from Slovakia, and so since I couldn’t be in person with my family for Christmas, I figured it might be nice if I could see if I could find something about this missing piece of my family history to share with my grandpa, mom, and aunts and uncles. I ended up meeting many incredible Slovaks during that journey, including a number of priests and religious who, while helping me look at the baptismal registries, gave me a great deal of encouragement, not only in finding her record but in life in general. By the end of the trip, I believe that I ended up finding her record of baptism in the town of Humenné, where the registry would seem to indicate her original last name before it was anglicized.

Favorite Christmas tradition: My grandma’s birthday is the 23rd, so we always do my grandma’s birthday party on Dec. 23, and then we have Christmas Eve with everyone on my dad’s side with Christmas Eve Mass, and we gather at my grandma’s house. Then on Christmas Day, we always wake up, and we would oftentimes go to Christmas Day Mass all together and then we just hang out as my grandfather on my mom’s side and my mom’s family would come over. It was just this whole set of three days that’s just a very intense time to hang out with family.

Favorite Christmas song: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” It’s more of an Advent song, but that’s my favorite song by far, because I always find it exhilarating waiting for Christmas and for Christ to come.

Pandoro vs. panettone: I’ve come to really like panettone, with raisins, or when they add in a lot of chocolate or other candied fruits.