Last updated on August 24th, 2023 at 07:08 pm
When we had kids, my American husband and I (his Spaniard wife) knew we would have to compromise sometimes on cultural issues — for example, in Spain cats have 7 lives whereas for my husband it was obvious they have 9! But since we both grew up Catholic and we live in the most Catholic region in Germany, we thought celebrating Christmas would be easy. Of course, we were wrong. Last year the kids were still too young to understand what was going on but this year it’s going to be time to slowly define how the family tradition will be, probably a mix of the things we most like.
In Germany, the celebrations start on the first advent weekend. Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before December 25th. People have an advent wreath with four candles and each Sunday one candle is lit up. Another nice tradition is the advent calendars, a little box with 24 doors. You open one door every day starting December 1st and you can find a little gift behind it, usually chocolate. During that time the towns are filled with Christmas markets where you can buy tree decorations, handcrafted gifts, delectable treats, and drink a Glühwein (warm wine with spices). On December 6th St Nikolaus brings some more sweets or little gifts to the good kids, while the naughty kids receive useless gifts such as sticks or stones from Knecht Ruprecht. I find the atmosphere still very spiritual and despite of all the shopping, you can still enjoy quietness and silence in preparation for Christmas and I think it is a great time to reflect on the past year. On December 24th the family gets together around the Christmas tree and sings songs. After a light dinner, baby Jesus brings gifts for the whole family and some families go to church for a midnight service. The 25th and 26th are also bank holidays where you meet the “extended” family and have lunch all together, one of the traditional dishes being goose with Kraut and dumplings. As for the rest of the vacation, many of the people I know go skiing until New Year’s Eve or even until the kids have to go back to school on the 7th of January.
I have to admit I’ve never celebrated Christmas in the US but my mother in law made sure she made some stockings for the kids, although I still don’t know where you have to hang them, ha ha! The only time we went to the US during the holidays was for New Year’s Eve. While we were landing at JFK airport you were able to see all the lights of the garden decorations blinking from miles up in the air, and there were soooo many. One thing I love from our American friends is the Christmas cards. Everybody sends one! And if they have kids they usually include cute pictures of them or even with the whole family. Even in these digital times they find time to have the pictures taken and developed, write the cards, and drive to the post office to send them, an effort most of our other friends don’t do. And I also like the music, all kinds of styles of Christmas songs: jazz, pop, and traditional.
In Spain there is no pre-Christmas feeling apart of the standard town decorations and crazy shopping. For me the vacation starts with the Christmas Lottery drawing on December 22nd called “El Gordo”. Even if you don’t gamble the rest of the year, I don’t know anybody that doesn’t play at least a couple of euros on a lottery ticket on that day. The first family reunion is on the 24th. We used to set up the tree in the morning and visit all the relatives after lunch to wish them a good time (in Spanish, Christmas Eve is called “Nochebuena” = “good night”). My parents never had an actual Christmas tree. Where I grew up there aren’t so many trees at all so it would be a sin to cut one down! I loved putting together the artificial one with my brother and arguing about the mounting instructions and also setting up the nativity scene, using flour for snow and moving the figurines of the Three Wise Men each day closer to the portal. The Three Kings visited Jesus after his birth bringing him gifts — gold, frankincense, and myrrh — on January 6th so that’s actually when most of Spanish kids receive their gifts. There is a parade on the evening of the 5th and if you left some food for the camels on the windows (yes, they travel by camel) then when you arrive home you find the gift boxes. J It is definitely late, since school starts the next day so I think we are going to stick to Santa Claus.
There are some things I really like from the Spanish way of celebrating, though. One of them is the meals, those fantastic feasts and huge family reunions. It can be overwhelming if you are not used to 20 people speaking loudly at the same time, plus all the dressing up, the kissing and the gossiping but I just love it. Also because it’s one of the few times I get to see all my family together and get to remember the ones that are not here any longer. After eating until you almost explode, the young members of the family go out and you meet old friends you also only see during the holidays. And of course you party all night long, taking advantage of having in-house baby sitters!
Wherever you are and however you celebrate, feliz navidad!
Marta Tolosa is a native of Spain and has been living in Germany for the last 12 years, where she met her American husband and raises her twin 22-month-old boys (who have 3 nationalities!) She studied computer science and works in IT. She likes to watch romantic comedies and walk back home from the movie theater.
