Since 1998 there is a different way to celebrate the Christmas time with all the personnel and their families at the 5° Reggimento Aviazione dell'Esercito "Rigel" (homebased at Casarsa Della Delizia, North East of Italy). During this special event Santa Claus himself brings some presents to the children using the helicopter, instead of the usual sledge and reindeer!! The special scheme is always dedicated to the children with some nice and well known cartoon artworks.

The first specially painted AB-205 for Christmas time appeared in 1994, but only from 1998, when M.llo A. Zanot and his colleagues of the 5° RIGEL started the nowadays established annual tradition of decorating the AB-205 with a special Christmas paint scheme.
However the 2002 version was dedicated to the "Befana" for the Epiphany and was not made for Christmas.

Here you can see a selection of the X-MAS AB-205s from the 1994 to this year's one and some pictures of this year event. For 2006 the AB-205 decorations consisted of characters from the movie "Ice Age".