Shiny or evanescent: there are many ways to celebrate anniversaries, including cheers and parties, board games in boxes and secluded corners all to yourself

Tree or nativity scene, panettone or pandoro, lunch or dinner? Magical atmosphere, full of lights, balls and an insuppressible need for warmth and goodness or cliché stress, rhetoric of good feelings and unbearable consumerist frenzy?

December has always seen facing the irreducible Christmas lovers and the contrary. However, there is an unexplored middle ground, full of nuances, where everyone can find the situation that makes them feel more at ease.

Traditional, worldly and sumptuous or sober, rarefied and whispered, to be shared in the company of board games or immersed in the enveloping solitude of a book, unpacking or toasting, parties can be tackled in different ways : let's tell some.

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The tradition of author calendars

We have increasingly digital lives, scanned by smartphones and apps that provide us with any type of data and information in real time, but we never give up on traditions, those of the author. Like the historical one of the Calender Plate by Fornasetti which reaches its fifty-fifth edition. Embellished with platinum, the collector's item designed for 2022, whether it is hung on the walls as an ornament or enriches the table as a festive decoration, gives - the usual , highly recognizable - a sophisticated yet dreamlike touch to the environment that hosts it.

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Gifts on gifts, art, wonder and sumptuousness

Boxes upon boxes, covered with glittering papers and embellished with bows and ribbons, Christmas gifts show off under the tree, but not only. When the domestic context becomes prestigious, packages must also be all height - coordinates - to amaze. Like the Meraviglia (Wonder)  that hovers in the Holiday 2021 campaign of Santoni, where the typical atmosphere of the festive period is symbolized by The Wedding of Bacchus and Ariadne, an eighteenth-century fresco by Michelangelo Ricciolini in the splendid Aeneid Room of Palazzo Buonaccorsi in Macerata. And the meraviglia  becomes concrete and tangible: the painting also covers the limited edition packaging.

Evanescent decorations, measure and sobriety

Sparkling but suspended, light and ethereal. Yes, the Christmas atmosphere can also be sober, in subtraction, but no less involving. Like the setting that lights up the large windows of the space Living Divani Gallery in Milan which, thanks to a transparent tree - distilled - that seems to float and to a scan of red and white vertical lines that stand out against a graphite black theatrical scenography, is transformed into a lantern of flashes interpreting the spirit of Christmas with measure and whispered elegance.

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Parties that celebrate the importance of being together

For the more worldly, parties are back (in part), the desire to celebrate, to see each other in person, to talk vis a vis, to dance together. Here then is iridescent atmospheres, pop and pulsating eighties disco, nostalgic memories never dormant from which to start again, to regain possession of bodies in motion. Also Absolut Voices, the Christmas limited edition of Absolut Vodka, is an invitation to reconnect with each other to create memorable moments. Enclosed in a sapphire blue glass bottle, it celebrates creativity, inclusiveness and diversity of identity and opinion.

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Board games

Inevitable to spend the holidays, especially to overcome the postprandial sleepiness, parlor games never go out of style and amuse everyone age. The bingo and the Mercante in Fiera, but also the very heated games of Scarabeo and Risiko, are part of family memories. For the more sophisticated there are the refined graphics of the board games Casino Night and Back Gammon , and both produced by Ridley and distributed in Italy by Moroni Gomma.

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A corner (of light) apparatus and muffled 

With the succession of intense and noisy Christmas days c 'is who feels the need to find a shelter from confusion, a private corner and apparatus where he can immerse himself in reading. Here then is Hymn, an essential candle holder that becomes a sort of luminous pendulum that swings and rotates, marking time, intimate, more precious.

Read also: books starring the house to give for Christmas

And if it snows outside, the crystalline shape of the Xtal table lamp refracts the light to create a luminous tapestry that gives a magical yet muffled sensation. They are both Japanese mood lamps by Ambientec, which combine high quality craftsmanship jewelery, innovative technologies and optical science in poetic forms, hosted (and on sale) from December in the Milanese showroom Porro Duriniquindici.

For the little ones c ’is the legendary Sacco (Small)...

And if the children at adult parties are bored, if they are already tired of the (too many) games received, too drawn, set and repetitive , they can always experiment and have fun with the and special diction of the Sacco Small by Zanotta, the children's version of the cult armchair designed by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro in 1968, proposed in 3 new colors: turquoise, purple and orange.

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... stimulate their creativity

Il Sacco is a design object that has the ability to intrigue children, stimulating them to invent new ways to sit, lie down and dive - literally - in ever new fantasy games. Here then it can turn into a spaceship, a boat or perhaps a soft colored cloud. Equipped with a practical shoulder bag in natural cotton fabric, Sacco Small is also easily transportable.

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... and help children in need

Sacco Small Special Edition is also a project that supports non-profit activities aimed at children with pathologies. A part of the proceeds from the sales will in fact be donated to support Recreational Therapy programs for sick children, focused on the experience of ' inclusion, participation and self-consciousness.

The magic (rolls) bright. All the year

Like it or not, the holiday spirit pervades everyone, even when it's not Christmas. It happens in Bergamo, in the Upper Town. As in a fairy tale, at night, the luminous magic of Catellani & Smith proves that anything can happen. In a film by Giorgio Oppici, in fact, the Fil de Fer, an iconic lamp in woven aluminum wire illuminated inside by tiny light bulbs, rolls between the squares, streets and doors of the historic village to head towards Città Bassa, in via Borfuro 1, where the Bergamo brand recently opened its new single-brand showroom.

Cover photo: Brindisi tray by Fornasetti