Christmas in Spain
No nation in the world knows how to appreciate itself quite like Spain, so at Christmas, the celebrations are naturally lengthy and spectacular.
The Christmas season in Spain is of course religiously centred, much more so than in England exactly where pagan traditions of gift-giving and tree-decorating have overshadowed the true meaning of Christmas and the celebration of the birth of the son of God.
The Spanish see Christmas Eve night as a time for family members, feasting and spending time together in the home. In contrast to other countries, you won’t find shops, bars and restaurants open on the night of Christmas Eve even so on Christmas Day it is one more matter, where everything is open and running, including buses and trains, all laid on so that families can visit each and every other with no getting to take the auto!
Throughout Advent, that is the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas, individual houses, villages and towns are decorated with Christmas trees (árboles de Navidad), wreaths (coronas de Navidad), tinsel (espumillón), holly (acebo), mistletoe (muérdago) and poinsettias (flores de Navidad) as nicely as innovative lighting wrapped around the branches of trees. But the most popular adornment, in-keeping with the religious tone of the season is the ‘belén’ – the nativity scene. Some towns construct quite ornate scenes, and numerous do not just stop at ‘Jesus in the manger’, with some depicting longer portions of the Christmas story, and in some locations they do not just use figurines – they use genuine actors! Some of these are a really well-known tourist attraction. If you are lucky sufficient to see one, don’t be surprised if the standard manger-side animals are joined by Spain’s national symbol – the bull!
Also during December many Spanish people take component in El Gordo, the most well-known lottery draw in the world with enormous cash prizes (El Gordo literally indicates ‘the fat one’). The Christmas Draw is on 22 December and the prizes total 2023 million Euros! That’s more than £1.3billion! Uncover out far more on www.elgordo.com.
The Spanish enjoy a lengthy Christmas period, with the very first significant celebration taking location on 21 December, the winter solstice and shortest day of the year. Hogueras – meaning ‘bonfires’ – is a tradition older than Christmas itself and marks the beginning of winter. As well as bonfires getting lit all more than Spain, in some towns (particularly Jaén and Granada in Andalucia), you will see people jumping more than fires, which is an act believed to shield against illness.
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Christmas Eve – Nochebuena (meaning ‘good night’) – on 24 December sees families come together for a unique meal late at night. This will typically consist of a 1st course of seafood, followed by a lot of various types of meat, not just turkey though this is popular, especially stuffed with truffles (Pavo Trufado de Navidad). Soon after the meal, the loved ones will congregate about the Christmas tree and sing carols (villancicos) including the well-liked Catalan ‘Fum, Fum, Fum.’ At midnight, bells ring out throughout Spain to call the families to ‘La Misa del Gallo’ – literally, ‘the Rooster’s Mass’. Christmas Eve has no location for sleeping! There is an old Spanish saying:
Esta noche es Nochebuena, y no es noche de dormir
Tonight is the great night, not a night for sleeping
Christmas Day (El Día de Navidad), as opposed to other countries, is not a day for exchanging gifts. Father Christmas (or Papa Noel) is recognized in Spain, but is not very common, so Spanish kids can’t be bribed with the ‘if you’re not great Santa won’t bring you any presents this year’ line. There is a time for gift giving, but it isn’t Christmas Day.
Boxing Day (Día del Boxeo) is much better known as the Feast of Saint Stephen (San Esteban) and is a public holiday in Spain.
28 December is ‘el día de los Santos Inocentes’, the Day of the Innocents. This is the Spanish version of April Fools Day and sees people involving themselves in practical jokes and crying ‘Inocente, inocente!’ (‘Innocent, innocent!’) when they are caught. Like in the UK, the newspapers are in on the tomfoolery as well.
31 December is of course New Years Eve – known as Nochevieja or ‘old night’ in Spain. The equivalent of the UK’s Trafalgar Square convergence is Madrid’s Puerta del Sol where tens of thousands of folks assemble to celebrate seeing the New Year in. But wherever people are in Spain, they will be seeing in the New Year in the classic way – with the ‘eating of the grapes’ (tomar las uvas). Every person gathered about the clock has twelve grapes, and as every chime of midnight rings out, so they have to eat one grape. A great insider tip is to take the skins off the grapes 1st to aid you eat them so rapidly!
This tradition dates back to fairly lately – the beginning of the 20th century – and supposedly came about after a bizarrely huge crop of grapes was harvested in Spain one unusually warm winter. Not knowing what to do with the unwanted crop, the grape growers came up with the concept of every individual in Spain consuming twelve grapes at midnight to see in the New Year.
El día de año nuevo, the first of January, is New Years Day and is a public holiday in Spain.
The next major event, and the most crucial of the Spanish Christmas season, is el día de Los Reyes Magos – the day of the 3 Kings. This takes location more than the five and 6 of January and is the time most looked forward to by kids in Spain, as it’s the day they get their presents!
Balthasar, Gaspar and Melchior were the three kings who followed the Star of David until they reached the lowly manger in Bethlehem twelve days soon after Jesus was born. As everybody knows, they brought with them gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. So this is why in Spain, the gift giving is celebrated on this day. As children in other countries turn out to be excited at the believed of Father Christmas trundling down the chimney with a sack full of toys, so Spanish young children appear forward to the arrival of the Three Kings in the course of the night, who arrive on their donkeys and leave gifts for all the niños.
In true Spanish fiesta style, this event is celebrated in carnival fashion with ‘La Cabalgata’, the cavalcade on the 5th of January. The ‘three kings’ make a spectacular entrance into the town or village on brightly adorned floats, throwing sweets to rows and rows of bright-eyed young children. Soon after the parade the young children return residence and just before bedtime, they fill their shoes with carrots and straw and put them by the window. This ritual is comparable to the ‘glass of milk and cookies by the fireplace for Santa’, but the Spanish youngsters are leaving food for the kings’ donkeys.
The next morning, January 6, sees the excited children up early to open the presents left by ‘the 3 Kings’, and is the day when the entire loved ones get together for a meal and to exchange gifts. Their meal will include a ‘Rosca de Reyes’, which is a huge fruitcake with coins and other surprises hidden inside.
So if you are preparing on spending Christmas in Spain, try and arrange it so you can be there for the celebration of the Three Kings on five and 6 January as this truly is 1 of the greatest issues to see.
And do not forget to bring house some of those fantastic Spanish delights of the Christmas season – like Turrón – identified to us as nougat – this comes in a range of flavours, such as almond, peanut and hazelnut. Mantecados and Polvorones are also popular standard Christmas sweets created with almonds. Divine!