Navidades

In my last Comparative French-Spanish Cuisine class, (officially comparative “grammar”), before Christmas, my teacher went through the class asking everyone how Christmas is celebrated where they come from. As always she was seeking the profound differences that have evolved over the course of history that set the time honored and faithfully followed Spanish traditions apart as supremely Spanish and awesome. She did her usually sweep of the class: the Spaniards, the French students, the Belgian girl, and finally, me.

( Secret Santa with friends at Starbucks )

I hate the way she always tries to base the habits and traditions of every single American on me. Doesn’t she realize that the US is a melting pot so big that you could pour about 19.4961 Spains into it? Her attempts at generalization based on me had been going on all semester and this time I was ready for it. I gave her the shortest, most evasive and ambiguous, non-answer possible.
As she proceeded to enumerate the exact activities and meals that every Spaniard would partake in on every single day between December 24^th and January 6^th, I only half listened, feeling doubtful that such unanimous traditions could actually exist.

(Snow!)

Spending the Christmas season in Spain opened my eyes the existence cultural traditions that I had been in such denial of. Missing all the Christmas traditions at home, and being an outsider to the festivities going on around me, made the customs on both ends and the differences between them glaringly obvious. While nothing seemed distinctive enough to be worth mentioning before, now, I could rattle off a list of about a million special things about the holidays at home to that teacher. And even though I’m still not sure I believe that every Madrileño goes skating at Principe Pio on January 2^nd, I definitely noticed some unique Spanish Christmas traditions.

(View from La Maliciosa. If you look closely you can the tops of Madrid's 4 Skyscrapers floating in the clouds.)

Overall, I was only an observer of the Spaniard’s Christmas celebrations, with the exception of one day. Shortly after the time when Christmas music would normally start playing in my dorm room, on December 2^nd, a couple of friends and I joined a hiking club on their 18^th annual hike of the “Belén”, and my Spanish Christmas season experience began in a totally unexpected way.

We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we signed up for the hike, not “the who”, not “the where”, not “the what”, nothing. The night before, I looked Belén up on www.wordreference.com and saw that it means nativity. I figured it was just a bad translation, because what does that have to do with hiking? At 8 am, as we groggily boarded the bus for the excursion, we found that “the who” was a group of about 30 people with an average age of about 65. They explained that we were headed to La Maliciosa, a snow capped mountain in the Sierra de Guadarama, about an hour outside Madrid, and right near El Escorial, where we had been the day before with our class. “The what” turned out to be a day-long, 17 kilometer hike, full of Christmas carol breaks, dedicated to carrying a little wooden manger scene to the top of the mountain and bringing the last year’s back down.

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Pulling last year's Belen out of hidding.................................... There its is.








Mid-hike carols................................More carols with dinner.

Believe it our not, the hike ended up being one of my favorite experiences of the semester, and definitely the most culturally authentic. Although there was a little snow at the top, the weather was warm and sunny. The mountain itself was unlike any east coast one I have ever been on. There was nothing but low lying shrubby plants above the base, so we were exposed to the warm sun and the panoramic view all day. All the people were really welcoming, sharing food, and stories, teaching us random words, and telling us about the area. And at the end of the day, completely exhausted, we stopped in a little mill town at the foot of the mountain for super, Christmas treats, and a lot more singing!

At the time it seemed pretty strange to me that we were leaving a little manger scene on a mountain. In the U.S. I think they are pretty exclusively for mantle pieces and in front of Churches, right? But in Spain they are everywhere, in houses, squares, municipal buildings, the front of department stores, the palace, and parades. And they aren’t just the usual: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, 3 Kings, and a few animals. In fact, the word Belén actually means Bethlehem in Spanish and that is exactly what the “Beléns” or “Nacimientos” that I saw were. They don’t only show the manger scene but, the entire town of Bethlehem! The big ones take you on the whole journey of the Three Kings as you circle around them. They are incredibly elaborate with hundreds of figures. At the Christmas fair in Plaza Mayor they sell electronic moving figure going for between 15 and 150 euros. And in some towns, instead of ceramic figures they still have live people posing!

In retrospect, I could not have begun my Spanish Christmas in a more appropriate way than with the hike of the “Belén” because importance of the Nativity tradition turned out to be the basis of the difference between Christmas here and in the US. Instead of lining up to sit on Santa’s lap Spaniards of all ages line up and all the way around the block to have a look at the elaborate Nativity scenes scattered around the city. The entire holiday is centered on the Nativity (which makes a lot of sense). And although, I think Santa comes to most houses here, the big day for exchanging presents is “los Reyes” on January 6^th. On that day parades of Kings come down the street tossing candy and stuff to kids. Christmas day it-self seemed to be much less of a big deal. Most families have their big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. We learned that the hard way when we couldn’t find any restaurants open!

(At the Christmas Fair)

There were a few other unexpected traditions such as the bizarre array of merchandise at the big Christmas Fair. Half the stands sell figures for the nativities. The other half sell pranks, and crazy wigs, which are either for December 28^th (Saint Innocents day which is like April Fools day in Spain) or maybe just for general fun because it seemed pretty normal to see someone walking down the street in a wig any old day.

(Me and my friends ended up getting wigs in the end for new years eve)

Another surprise was that the lines for Lottery tickets were just as long, if not longer than the line to see the Belenes because the “extraordinary” Christmas lottery is the biggest drawing of the year. The lottery is so popular here that even my Señora’s son had a story about winning big at the age of eight. He won the lottery ticket among other things for being the 1000^th customer at the Cortes Ingles while buying his sister a present, which clearly suggests that God was rewarding his good deed and he is very proud of it.

The only tradition that I was really disappointed about was that for environmental reasons there are no real Christmas trees allowed. Families get fake ones if any, and around the city they have "artistic", mostly metal ones. Even the big special “wishing” Christmas tree that I dragged my family to see in the Retiro park ended up being a humongous plastic cone filled with colorful balloons. I tried to make do with a tree from my favorite “Chino” store but when I got it home I realized it was not a Christmas tree at all, it looked more like the top of a tacky palm tree. But my family still pretended to like it and we hung some ornaments on it. Trees or no trees I loved Christmas in Spain. It really brought back the magic of living in a different culture. But the best part of all was the huge present that I got.
Being neither in the US, nor Spanish, this year my best gift didn’t arrive on Santa’s Sleigh or the back of the Kings' Camels. They arrived on a train from Paris! I couldn’t have asked for a better gift than to have my family visit. I missed them so much and I had an awesome time showing them around the country where I’ve been living. I was so glad they were here with me to celebrate a non-traditional Christmas away from home. And it was cool to discover some of the Spanish Christmas traditions with them. I also loved showing them the places that I’ve learned about this year.

As I toured the city with them I found myself telling them about all the “typical” sights just as my tour guide had called them on my tour of the city when I arrived. I remember thinking it was weird how much Spaniards use the word typical. It must be one of the most popular adjectives and it always has a positive connotation. I laughed with my mom when she read a menu item described at “typical soup”. But over break I have finally begun to appreciate what the Spaniards see in “typical”.

(Family in front of the "Oso and Madroño" the typical symbol of Madrid.)

If everyone were the same the world would be a boring place. But if everything were completely random there would be no culture and then it would be a truly boring place. Now, I understand my teacher’s insistence on the valor of tradition, my tour guide’s focus on the typical and even why someone would order typical soup. After all, I guess, experiencing a country’s traditions, most common tourist attractions, and customary food is what traveling is all about!

So, with my family, we ate all the most authentic food, starting with Paella in Madrid, then Suckiling Pig in Segovia, a Christmas Dinner at the oldest restaurant in the world, tapas in my old neighborhood, and my Dad’s favorite, turkish kebaps. We also went to a really fantastic Flamenco show. We enjoyed Madrid’s Christmas firework and light show.We saw all the best sights there are to see in Madrid, Toledo, and Segovia. And we took lots of pictures to prove it.

In front of the Puerta de Alcala after mass on Christmas day.

Sitting at the edge of the lake in the Retiro, Madrid's huge park.
We walked all the way to my old street and I forgot the keys to my apartment
In front of Plaza de las Ventas, Madrid's Bull ring.
In the courtyard of the Royal Palace.In front of the Roman aqueducts in Segovia.
Standing outside the Alcazar in Segovia, an awesome castle.....
With an amazing view of the Catherdral and the town below and off into the mountains.
Group shot in front of the old city hall.

The family standing on Kilometro Zero, the center of old Madrid and the origin of the all major roads. This means they will return to Madrid someday.















Pro Flamenco Dancer and....Dad. He could have a future as a Flamenco star















Joe and some famous soccer players



...........Joe with King Juan Carlos



















Mary and Superman .................Mary stabbed by a scary warrior



















Joe and Mary trying on some Christmas Presents








Crossing over the Tagus river with a view of Toledo in the background.