tombola: a kitchen in Naples, Italy, at Christmas

Ball 34 tumbled out and the attic filled with the smell of oranges and woodsmoke. A family sat around a long kitchen table, and grandmother had a basket of numbered tokens. People say the game came into homes around this time, when the big public lottery was paused for the holidays and families made their own.

Here, every number also stood for a picture. Grandmother — Smorfia, she said, “like the old dream books” — drew a token and did not read the number. She said the picture instead. “Fish,” she said, and the children looked at their key to find which number meant fish.

“A number is just a number,” Smorfia said, “until you decide it means something. Then it is a symbol.”

Where this comes from: The usual story ties tombola to 1734, when Naples’s public draw was paused for Christmas after Father Gregorio Rocco objected, and families played at home. It is a tradition, not a record anyone can check. Our symbol key is our own, not the Smorfia list.