HOW IS CHRISTMAS IN SPAIN?

Origin of Christmas in Spain

• It’s a Christian celebration.• It reached Spain as a remain of the Saturnales. • Saturnales were parties to conmemorate the

god Saturn in Roman religion.

AT CHRISTMAS THERE ARE A LOTOF SPECIAL DAYS

Such as:

22- The national lottery

24- Christmas Eve

25- Christmas Day

31- New Year’s Eve

1- New Year’s Day

6- The day when the families open the presents that the three kings bring

Spanish Christimas lotery:

• The christmas lotery is a very, very, very important event for Spanish people.

• The “Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad” or the Extraordinary Christimas Draw is one of the most famous drawings of lotteries of Spain.

• It is celebrated the 22th of december every year since 1812, and it is celebrated in the saloon of draws of the “Loterias y Apuestas del Estado” in Madrid.

• The biggest prize is called the gordo and it is about 5500000 of dollars (4000000 of euros).

• The most popular place to buy the lottery is in the Doña Manolita a very old shop that has been selling lottery since 1904 in Madrid.

Spanish Christmas lottery:

• The christmas lottery is a very, very, very important event for Spanish people.

• The “Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad” or the Extraordinary Christimas Draw is one of the most famous drawings of lotteries of Spain.

• It is celebrated the 22th of december every year since 1812, and it is celebrated in the saloon of draws of the “Loterias y Apuestas del Estado” in Madrid.

• The biggest prize is called the gordo and it is about 5500000 of dollars (4000000 of euros).

• The most popular place to buy the lottery is in the Doña Manolita a very old shop that has been selling lottery since 1904 in Madrid

• It� s celebrated the 24th of December. All the family meet towether to have dinner. In Spain we have the tradition of wearing red underwear to have good luck.

• It� scelebratedon the24th of December. Allthefamilymeettogetherto havedinner. In Spainwehavethetraditionof wearingred underwearto havegoodluck.

Christmas eve dinner• Like lamb, turkey, shrimp (prawns),

nougat, marzipan …• I n Spain the traditional Christmas

f ood is usually based on abundant sweet dishes. Notably nougats,shortbread, dates, marzipan, sweets, alf ajores, or almond soup, among other sweets.

• I t is also common to eat dishes with dates, such as pork, f ree range chicken, turkey, capon, lamb, sea bream, escudella, shrimp, also cod with caulifl ower.

• I n Spanish, Christmas Eve is called "La Noche Buena," literally translated as "The Good Night." I n Spain it is celebrated with a large f amily f east, which is eaten late in the evening and can last f or several hours.

• Most f amilies eat their main Christmas meal on Christmas Eve bef ore the service. The traditional Spanish Christmas dinner is 'PavoTruf ado de Navidad' which is Turkey stuff ed with truffl es.

The King’s Speech onTV

Every Christmas Eve, The King, gives a speech summarizing how the year has been, and sends his best wishes for the new year to be better.

This is the link for last year’s speech:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcJfglI7qqc

CHRISTMAS DAYTheChristmas Day isoneof themostimportant

celebrationsin Christianity.

In Spainwedecorate allourhouses withChristmas

decorations, including theChristmas tree.

O Christmas Day, somekidsopen theirSanta Claus

presentseventhoughtthisisnota Spanishtraditionwe

havelunch withall thefamily, theneverybodystaysin

theliving roomtalkingand havingfuntheneverybody

gosleeping and thenextmorningthefamily, especially

thekidswakeup so soonto open all thepresents

Here in Spain it’s a very important date, we celebrate that a new and a better year comes. Here, we do something that seems strange, the 12 seconds before the 1st of J anuary we eat 1 grape per second ( in total 12 grapes), for us is very important.

Twelvegrapes of luckIt is a tradition of Spanish origin that dates back from 1896.

It consists of eating 12 grapes, one for each chime (in total 12 chimes) at 12 am on December 31 (New Year's Eve)

The Cotillon party.

The “Cotillion party” is the name given to the celebration that people have after

the New Year starts.People usually go out with friends or the family and they drink, dance and have

fun!

NEW YEAR’S DAY

On New Year ’s Day thewhole family meet to have

lunch. We also go to a specialmass (if you are a Christian).In my family we usually eatfondue and we toast with

cider (children) orchampagne(adults).

The Three WiseMen

•The three wise men came to the Nativity scene to offer presents to Jesus. The presents were Gold Frankincense and Myrrh.•Today, in Spain the Three Wise Men bring presents to the whole family on January 6th. It is a bank holiday for us.

The presents• The Three Wise Men leave the presents

under the Chitsmas tree or in our shoes.• The day before we leave traditional

Christmas sweets for the kings and waterfor the camels.

• The children get up very soon to see thepresents.

THE PARADE• It is a traditional parade of coaches. • It takes place on January 6th. • In the coaches we can see the three wise men,

who throw sweets at the children.

Typical Spanish food at Christmas

• One of the most typical food is prawns.• We eat more seafood, like mussels, lobster…• The most popular sweets are marzipan, nougat,

shortbread and the three wise men’s cake.

XMAS DESSERTSTURRÓN ROSCÓN DE REYES (KING’S CAKE)

• It is a confection, typically made of honey, sugar and white eggs.

• It’s a typeof cake that Spanishpeopleeat at Christmas. It has got2 surprises inside, a good oneand a bad one. If you get thegoodsurprise, you will be theKing of thehousefor a day. If you get thebad surprise (typically a vean), you haveto pay for thecake.

TYPICAL DRINK IN SPAIN

The typical drink at Christmas is wine. For seafood the wine that suits is white and rose, for the meat red wine.

On the last night of the year, apart from drinking wine, champagne is drunk to toast for the new year

In Spain we also drink cider, which is sweeter than champagne as it is made from apples

THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

In Spain, we put Christmas lights in trees,

streets, malls,houses,

Christmas trees, …

The Christmas treeThe Christmas tree is usually

green but can also be white. It has colored lights, ornaments

as many balls, reindeer, Christmas stockings, stars ...

And many presents underneath it if you're good.

NATIVITY SCENE (BELÉN) The nativity is a typical decoration at Christmas. It has

got many figurines with different characters. It is displayed in many places: schools, houses, shopping centres ...

SHOPING IN MADRID

GOING SHOPPING IN THE CENTRE OF MADRID AND OTHER SPANISH CITIES AND TOWNS AT CHRISTMAS IS

VERY POPULAR

XMAS CAROLS

• These are the most famous Spanish carols:

• ``Los peces en el rio´´. Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISTM3XGCmHE

• ``Campana sobre campana´´. Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGWvaBsX0w8

TYPICAL CHRISTMAS INSTRUMENTS:

Kindof rusticdrum:

It is p layed moving yourhand up and down along thestick of the zambomba (name in Spanish ).

Bottle(anis):

It is p layed rubbing the emptybottle of glass with some cutlery .

Tambourine.

It is p layed hitting your handon the leather of thetambourine.

Mortar: It is p layed hitting thebottom of the mortar withsome cutlery.

FELIZ NAVIDAD

From Spain