A Spanish Christmas and New Year

[Ferran]

A Spanish Christmas and New Year

From the curious 'caganers' to the soap baths of Innocents Day, a Spanish Christmas can be a strange phenomenon to the foreigner. We explain what you can enjoy through the Festive Season.


The caganer ensures a bumper harvest for the next year

The typical Nativity scene seems perfectly innocuous. There is baby Jesus, the Three Wise Men, the shepherds and Mary and Joseph, all around the manger.

But take a closer look and you spot the small, half-hidden figure of a man, squatting, trousers half-down, seemingly oblivious to the sacred scene around him. He is merrily doing his business, leaving a less-than heavenly deposit on the ground below.

The 'caganer', the small model figure that appears out of nowhere this time of year, is a figure peculiar to a Catalan Christmas. But quite why he or she is there seems a mystery to many. (The word caganer, by the way, graphically illustrates what he is doing.)

You could be forgiven for thinking the caganer is some gesture of disrespect towards the Church. In fact it is quite the opposite.

The figures emerged in the 18th Century, from no one knows quite where.

And to have one made in your own image is seen as a mark of honour, rather than as a sign of disrespect.


Jose Maria Aznar has been honoured with a caganer

Famous faces, from Spain’s prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to Princess Letizia and other luminaries (perhaps this year even Real Madrid’s David Beckham?), are moulded into caganers.

The job of the caganer is supposedly to do what he has to do — fulfilling a natural bodily function in much the same way as rural workers have always done.

By making this small contribution to the land, he fertilises the ground and ensures a bumper harvest for the next year. He will then bring good fortune to the family. Placed in the Nativity scene, among all the other figures or 'cagatios', he is thought of as a lucky charm.

The fame of these strange, perhaps tongue-in-cheek figures has spread across the world. There is an association, called the Friends of the Caganer, whose members are spread as far as Japan and the United States.

They imbue these small figurines with some strange properties. This is how they see the contribution of the caganer: "A cosmic indifference which contrasts with the spiritual motivation which is awoken by the greatest mystery of human kind – a counterpoint which adds a human side to the representation of the mystery of Christmas."

Well, perhaps. But, whatever you think, part of the fun is to find the caganer and guess its identity among the more well-known Nativity figures.


Grape expectations

Aside from this Catalan speciality, another festive custom which seems to delight foreigners is gulping down 12 grapes on New Year’s Eve.

As the 12 bells sound out from Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and are beamed around the country live on television, you have to eat a grape, one for each chime. Spaniards are known to cheat at this, buying specially-peeled grapes in supermarkets, so the whole business is easier.

It is thought that eating the grapes brings you good luck. But the truth is that it was an invention dreamed up by wine-growers to boost their coffers. Like many Christmas traditions the world over, it has more to do with commercial ingenuity than sacred ritual.


Letizia

It is said that early in the last century a bumper harvest of grapes left growers with more than they could handle. So they dreamed up this ‘custom’ and somehow the idea caught on.

However, even if the grape-eating has no roots in history, then other culinary customs do.

Early Iberians are believed to have marked the winter solstice (the time of year when days start getting longer and the nights shorter) with some sort of fire ritual. The Romans, who ruled Spain for five centuries, devoted this time of year to their Saturnalia festival, a period of eating, drinking and gift-giving.

Many of the Christmas pastries to which Spaniards are addicted were originally Sephardic Jewish and Moorish recipes, adding to the multi-cultural heritage of the winter holidays in Spain.


Feasting timetable

The Christmas feasting starts, as in many Catholic countries, on Christmas Eve (Nochebuena) with a huge meal, usually turkey filled with plums and pine nuts.

But in Madrid, they have a slightly more exotic version, starting with shellfish soup, followed by lamb, bream and prawns. In Catalonia, there is a soupy stew — a mixture of fish, meat and vegetables. It is followed by turkey. The desert is usually turron — a kind of sweet nougat.


Zapatero

Then they head off for the Misa del Gallo (Midnight Mass). Christmas carols have a livelier rhythm and spicier lyrics than their more solemn versions in other parts of the world.

There’s more feasting on Christmas Day (Navidad), again usually with turkey. Afterwards, the family usually go to visit relatives.

Unsurprisingly, it is a good excuse to have a drink too. Christmas pastries will be offered along with a glass of sweet anise liqueur. But Cava is the favourite tipple.

One thing that seems peculiar to those from the English-speaking world is that Christmas doesn’t stop on Boxing Day – but carries right on until 6 January – or Los Reyes.

And instead of singing about partridges and pear trees and the 12 days of Christmas, Spaniards really do mark every day.

Before Christmas, Spaniards prepare the Belén – the Nativity scene where Catalans introduce the ‘caganers’. Most Castellanos, Basques and other Spaniards, however, limit themselves to the clay figurines representing shepherds and Roman soldiers, shopkeepers and housewives, as well as Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. They can take this to great lengths.

The whole experience seems to go to their heads, because a few days after Christmas Day, they celebrate the Day of the Innocents on 28 December — when King Herod killed the infants in Judea.

But it is treated like the Britsh April Fool’s Day — town fountains are filled with soap suds and newspapers carry spoof stories.

Strangely, though Christmas in many other countries is all about children, Spanish youngsters have to wait — at least traditionally — until 6 January and Epiphany for their goodies. The Spanish version of Santa Claus is Los Reyes Magos – the Three Wise Men, who bore gifts to the infant Jesus.

The night before, 5 January, Spanish children will put a pair of shoes outside the bedroom door and then they will head for the streets to watch the Cabalgata parade, which heralds the arrival of the Reyes Magos. Each of the Three Wise Men will be riding on a float and throwing sweets to the delighted children.

But curiously, when the children get back from watching the parade, their presents will be there waiting.

For more information:

• www.amicsdelcaganer.org
• www.caganer.com

December 2004




Source: http://www.expatica.com/source/site_...asand+New+Year

[Menydh]

ROFL. The article doesn't say that the figure of the caganer is tradition to hide it behind the Portal (the crib).

[Ferran]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

ROFL. The article doesn't say that the figure of the caganer is tradition to hide it behind the Portal (the crib).

You are right, that article is strongly influenced by the caganer's aspirations to be more and more popular every year , some decades ago they were simply a curiosity of Catalan culture, but now, they are a indispensable piece in all pessebres, and so, they want to be seen on all pessebre's photo planes.