Christmas in Spain

A Glimpse of Christmas in Spain

Unlike in Northern Europe children in Spain are far more excited about the Three Kings (Los Reyes) arrival who bring their gifts on the night of the 5th January. However with more influences from Europe the children are actually enjoying double pressie deliveries with Father Christmas (Papa Noel) appearing on Christmas Eve as well!

Christmas Day is traditionally a family day with Mass taken in church followed by a Christmas dinner. Although turkey is very popular other game is also eaten plus certainly in this area Seafood as a starter would be quite usual with gambas and langostinas in great supply.

At Christmas after the meal traditionally a plate of Turron (nougat) would be offered. Alicante and Jijona Turron is very famous and fiercely guarded recipes hold the secret to this sweet. Where Selection Boxes are to be found everywhere for instance in England the wide variety of Turrons are stacked in all the shops here. Typical light coloured nougats, chocolate
nougats, soft nougats, hard nougats - a truly amazing array. The ingredients include almonds, honey, and sugar so the result is incredibly sweet.

Spaniards always take their champagne (cava) at the end of the meal. Freixenet, one of the most popular and well known makes advertise their products on television at this time of year
sometimes filling up to a ten minute spot so it can only be assumed that they sell a vast quantity at Christmas.

So after Christmas New Year's Eve must be celebrated Noche Vieja - literally Old Night). Most restaurants put on a gourmet meal for New Year's Eve with live music. Again at the end of the meal Turron will be offered and also sweet pastries. The Cava will be reserved to accompany your bag of Lucky Grapes. The idea of these is you have twelve white grapes and on each chime of midnight you eat one grape and this will bring you luck for the new year. One piece of advice though... deseed the grapes beforehand! You also have Cotillion for midnight which is basically a bag of goodies, paper hats, blowers, streamers etc because basically this is a fiesta and as I have said before Spaniards like to fiesta.

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