09 January 2014
Un paseo por el Albaicin
December 30, Granada: Getting lost in the Albaicin and enjoying the penultimate sunset of the year.
07 January 2014
Christmas in Spain!
Get comfortable, this is going to be a long one!
Choosing to spend Christmas in Spain was a hard decision. I have spent every single Christmas of my life in Pine Point, my mom's home town, with all of her family. But a ~$1000 price tag on my return flight and the opportunity to celebrate Navidad Spanish style won over and December 23rd found me on a train heading south to my Spanish home-away-from-home, Granada. And I'm SO glad I took a risk and spent Christmas away from home and got to experience new customs and ways of celebrating familiar holidays.
Here's some key elements of Navidad in España!
Villancicos (Christmas carols!)
While it's not uncommon to hear Jingle Bells (with the lyrics translated to Spanish) or other familiar songs to any American, Spain has its own collection of classic Christmas songs, known as villancicos. I got to hear and learn several of these while helping my students prepare for their annual Christmas concert.
Here´s a video of the children of Tudela singing Christmas carols in the Plaza Nueva in the center of town. (The students wearing matching navy blue jackets are from my school).
Belenes
Spain has a love for Nativity scenes bordering on obsession. They´re creative, they´re elaborate and they´re everywhere: store windows, churches, and private associations create ones around the city for people to come visit during the Christmas season. I loved seeing them. The kids at my school made an enormous one in the hallway out of cardboard boxes wrapped in brown paper with the silhouettes of the figures cut out and glued onto the boxes.
I got to see some more traditional ones while taking a Belén-tour-of-Granada with my host family. It´s unbelievable how much time goes into the creation of these and how much detail and intricacy there is. They include the entire town of Bethlehem and they were enormous, at least 10-20 feet long. The best ones included houses with beds, plates, paintings on the walls, every detail you could possibly imagine. Some had day and night, one had a storm with thunder and lightning every 15 minutes or so, smoke came out of the chimneys, and running water. The ground was covered with real plants, stones and moss. Some of the figures even moved as they worked on whatever task they were undertaking in Bethlehem: putting a horseshoe on a horse, slaughtering a pig, making sausages, fishing in a stream, it was incredible.
Rumor has it there´s one in Granada made entirely out of chocolate as well, but I didn´t get to see it.
Choosing to spend Christmas in Spain was a hard decision. I have spent every single Christmas of my life in Pine Point, my mom's home town, with all of her family. But a ~$1000 price tag on my return flight and the opportunity to celebrate Navidad Spanish style won over and December 23rd found me on a train heading south to my Spanish home-away-from-home, Granada. And I'm SO glad I took a risk and spent Christmas away from home and got to experience new customs and ways of celebrating familiar holidays.
Here's some key elements of Navidad in España!
Villancicos (Christmas carols!)
While it's not uncommon to hear Jingle Bells (with the lyrics translated to Spanish) or other familiar songs to any American, Spain has its own collection of classic Christmas songs, known as villancicos. I got to hear and learn several of these while helping my students prepare for their annual Christmas concert.
Here´s a video of the children of Tudela singing Christmas carols in the Plaza Nueva in the center of town. (The students wearing matching navy blue jackets are from my school).
Belenes
Spain has a love for Nativity scenes bordering on obsession. They´re creative, they´re elaborate and they´re everywhere: store windows, churches, and private associations create ones around the city for people to come visit during the Christmas season. I loved seeing them. The kids at my school made an enormous one in the hallway out of cardboard boxes wrapped in brown paper with the silhouettes of the figures cut out and glued onto the boxes.
I got to see some more traditional ones while taking a Belén-tour-of-Granada with my host family. It´s unbelievable how much time goes into the creation of these and how much detail and intricacy there is. They include the entire town of Bethlehem and they were enormous, at least 10-20 feet long. The best ones included houses with beds, plates, paintings on the walls, every detail you could possibly imagine. Some had day and night, one had a storm with thunder and lightning every 15 minutes or so, smoke came out of the chimneys, and running water. The ground was covered with real plants, stones and moss. Some of the figures even moved as they worked on whatever task they were undertaking in Bethlehem: putting a horseshoe on a horse, slaughtering a pig, making sausages, fishing in a stream, it was incredible.
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| The best Belén, in Pinos Puente, a small town outside of Granada. This is about a tenth of the entire Belen! |
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| A smaller Belén in a store window in Granada, complete with miniature potttery with pomegranates (granadas!) on them |
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| My favorite Belén, made entirely from crochet! |
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