Merry Navidad
Merry Navidad and Feliz New Year!
It’s the holiday season in Spain, and a resident American notes a variety of different twists on familiar themes. In local living rooms, Christmas trees tend to take a backseat to nativity scenes, which can be quite big and incredibly elaborate, featuring arrays of heirloom figurines, intricately detailed landscapes, even water effects. Like many of their American counterparts, Spanish children are busy writing wish-list letters, but not to Santa Clause. Around here, they’ve got to plead their case to the Three Kings (Los Reyes Magos), who won’t be making the rounds until January 6, on Epiphany.
Here in Jerez, you can’t do much of anything in without flamenco finding a way in, and Christmas is no exception. Over the years traditional Spanish villancicos (carols) have been infused with lively rhythms that lend themselves to dancing bulerías, the distinctive flamenco style of Jerez. In some homes, holiday get-togethers with friends and family have historically taken the form of zambombas, a celebration named for the traditional percussion instrument that provides the rhythmic backbeat. More recently the zambomba has become something of a phenomenon: What began as a fairly intimate family gathering on interior patios has taken to the streets, drawing crowds from across the region to celebrate the season in the Jerezano way. If you’ve been learning to dance bulerías, this is the chance to show them off.
Local turkeys can rest easy this time of the year: Holiday feasts tend to feature platters of seafood and Iberian ham. To drink there is champagne-or rather cava, from Catalonia-and, here in Jerez, plenty of sherry. The darker, sweeter varieties are especially popular, pairing as they do with seasonal sweets like pestiños, rosquillas, and mantecados.
Come New Year’s Eve, across Spain, grapes will be added to the mix-twelve for each person. In the lead-up to the big moment, friends and family will gather around the television to count down the New Year with the crowds gathered in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol. When the bells toll midnight, for good luck, you’re expected to eat one grape with each toll of the bell. Just to be clear, that’s one grape every three seconds. There are helpful strategies-peeling the grapes beforehand, cutting them in half, removing the seeds-but however you approach this thing, it is no easy feat to knock back twelve grapes in under a minute, and it is quite impossible to combine with the American tradition of kissing your beloved at the stroke of midnight. (I’ve tried.)
It must be said, midnight in Spain is one of the most peaceful moments of the year. Spain is a famously gregarious country: In these parts, people like to talk-a lot, and sometimes all at once. But it is not physically possible, not even for a Spaniard, to carry on a conversation while trying to put away 12 grapes, so for this one minute every year, when the whole nation has its mouth stuffed full of grapes, things are-finally, blessedly-quiet. Only for a moment, though. When the grapes are gone, there will be fireworks, cheers, and a long night of merrymaking that may not end before the sun comes up on the New Year.
In the States, of course, that would be it. End of story, game over. But here in Spain, we’ll still be waiting on the Three Kings. On January 5, Gaspar, Melchor and Baltasar will make their royal entrance into cities and towns across the nation during the Cabalgata de Reyes, big rollicking parades with a lot of singing, a lot of dancing, and a lot of sweets and toys tossed to the crowds from floats.
The next morning, families will gather to open presents over hot chocolate (real hot chocolate!) and a Roscón de Reyes. That’s a big, donut-shaped brioche pastry that has both a tiny king and a bean planted somewhere inside. Traditionally, if you find the king in your slice, you get good luck, but if you find the bean, you get the bill for the cake.
The next day, all the other bills come due. On January 7, it’s back to school and back to work. The rest of January, when recovering from holiday excesses will be the order of the day, is known as la cuesta.
The hill.
Till next time,
Charlie
Raised in Charleston, SC, Charlie Geer currently lives in Andalusia, Spain. His work has appeared in various journals and magazines, including the Threepenny Review, The Sun Magazine, Tin House, the Southern Review, Garden and Gun, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. His novel Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston was published by River City Publishing in 2005, and his collection of essays in Spanish, ¿Qué Dices, Teacher?, was published by Plan B in 2020. Follow him online at @amerizano and at charliegeer.substack.com.