Christmas is coming and it is always joy to remember “mis tradiciones navideñas en España cuando era niño”.

I remember when they used to start around this period of December when I prepared the nativity “pessebre” together with my parents. Usually the city and houses used to start decorating with Christmas lights after 8^th December (like the Vamos website).

In Spain it was more popular to have a nativity than a Christmas tree. I used to build my “pessebre” in detail, even using real moss that we would collect from mountains near Barcelona. But the star of my nativity was “El caganer”.

El Caganer:

This is a very Catalan tradition. “El caganer” a “pooping man” is a little nativity figure of a traditional Catalan countryman who is squatting down somewhere in the nativity scene. Caganer is the favourite of the kids, who always love to examine the Christmas nativity, trying to find where he is “pooping”.

Maybe you think it is disrespectful to place this king of figure in a religious scene? Well it’s not. It became such a tradition from 18^th century, when they believe that it could be a good-luck sign to ask for a good harvest for the year to come, his poo symbolises the fertility of the land.

Now it’s such a big thing that every year the sell “caganers” in the form of famous celebrities of the year. Last year the most sold was Donald Trump´s caganer.

But our obsession with pooping does not end with “el caganer”, we also have a log who poops presents called “El Cagatió”

El Cagatió:

It is a wooden log with a smiley face painted on the end and also wears a traditional Catalan red hat. It is basically our equivalent to Father Christmas.

On Christmas eve we cover his rear with a blanket to keep him warm and feed him with “turrón” and hazelnuts; the more you feed him, the more presents will poop out. In order to get his presents or to persuade him to poop them out, you have to hit him with a wooden stick and sing a traditional song. At the beginning it takes time for him to release the presents and that is when children need to get some more food for the log and miraculously when they come back and sing again the song, they find their presents below the blanket, they are usually sweets or small toys.

The food during Christmas varies a lot depending on your family and region. We do not have a traditional dish that everybody cooks for Christmas like turkey, however in Catalonia we eat soup  and roasted meat during Christmas and we also celebrate “Sant Esteve” on 26^th December, our equivalent to Boxing day.

That day we have special dish “Canelons” which are cannelonni. This dish became very traditional when apparently a Christmas chef started recommending to fill cannelonni with meat leftovers from Christmas eve and Christmas day. But the star of Christmas is “Turrón”.

Turrón is a traditional nougat confection, typically made of honey, sugar, and egg white, with toasted almonds or other nuts, and usually shaped into either a rectangular tablet or a round cake. Its origins come from Moorish which started to elaborate this kind of desserts near Alicante.

Today you can find lots of different “turrones” (chocolate, brandy, Nutella), but the traditional ones are turrón blando and duro. Soft Jijona or turrón blando, which is so smooth it has the consistency of peanut butter, and hard Alicante or turrón duro, which is like a thick almond nougat candy, similar to the texture of peanut brittle. Turrones are also accompanied with “polvorones” which is similar to a shortbread but softer and manly produced in Andalucía.

Feliz Navidad,

Enric

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