Christmas in Spain!

Hello everyone!

Now we are crossing the sea to the colorful Spain where they have lots of tradition around Christmas.

They usually celebrate the Birth of Christ so they put the Portal of Bethlehem in the manger and decorate beautifully their Christmas tree using garlands, Bethlehem stars and other things. The 24th of December everyone has dinner with their families, the traditional plate it's stuffed turkey but in other parts they would have other things; in general they would toast with champagne or cava and eat Christmas sweets while singing christmas carols.

These carols are sung by all the family and the tambourine, the zambomba and Christmas instruments are used to accompany the carol too.

At twelve o'clock takes place the "Misa del gallo" in representation of the Birth of Jesus.

There are some regions where the children celebrates the "Caga Tió" or "Tió de Nadal", the Tió it's a little log that has to be feeded so in the Christmas night it will give them presents and sweets.In other parts of this country some people celebrate the 26th "San Esteban Day" that it's another family festivity where they eat the leftovers from the past days preparing "canelones".

The 31th of December they celebrate the end of year where you can wear underwear red for good luck and they wait for the television to broadcast the twelve bells from Puerta del Sol in Madrid and each one is accompanied with a Lucky Grape, after this they celebrate the New Year in the first of January where everyone is in their houses and the streets are empty. And after this the festivities haven't reached an end! Because now they have the 5th of January where the Biblical Magi (Wise men/ kings) comes to give presents to the children (just like Santa) and there is also a Wise Men Ride which fills the streets with color and joy for everyone; they also have a traditional plate for this day that it's the "Roscon de Reyes" a sweet bread filled with mazapán, cream and other stuff including two little figures, one king and one bean, the person who find the king it's going to be crowned while the one who finds the bean it's going to pay the bread!

Hope you liked this post! I really loved it! Good wishes, Sheryl.