A traditional festive season in Andalucia

Walking through the cities of Andalucia at Christmas you can enjoy beautifully lit streets, where friends and family will gather to pass the cold December nights shopping, eating hot chestnuts and drinking sweet wine. Christmas here is much like in the rest of the Christian world, but with a few characteristics symbols that  still hold much importance.

One of the most obvious is the nativity scene which can be seen on large scale in the cities and you can also see smaller ones in doorways and balconies of many Spanish homes. In many places during the nights before Christmas, "plazas" may hold a live nativity scene with actors and actresses from the town playing the parts of Mary and Joseph and the three kings.

Another tradition in Spain since 1763 is to buy a Christmas lottery ticket that today can cost you around 25 Euros. The winning numbers are announced on the 22nd of December. Also on the 22nd is when the students begin their winter holidays.

Christmas Eve, Noche Buena, is THE night of Christmas in Spain; where the whole family comes together to celebrate on the 24th.

A traditional Andalucian family will eat a lot of prawns on Christmas Eve, some will also eat roast turkey with chestnuts or chicken in an almond sauce, others will just eat more seafood. The meal is accompanied by a glass of wine or Cava, the Spanish equivalent to champagne. For dessert, there is quite a spread of delicacies; among them are Turrón and Marzipan, desserts made of honey, egg and almonds that are of Arabic origin, as well as polvorones and a variety of nuts and dried fruits.

 After dinner, at midnight the older generation will go to mass, whilst the younger Spanish will get ready to go out and party until the early hours of the morning.

New years Eve is a party night like everywhere else in the world, though the structure is a little different than in other countries. Rather than starting early and building to a crescendo at midnight, the Spanish see in the new year sober (well, nearly sober), either with friends or with family, and then  go out to the bars and discos at about 12.30AM. The partying then continues until about 6AM.

An ancient tradition that was started by some some shrewd farmers about 100 years ago when they were left with too many grapes at the end of the year, is the eating of twelve grapes on the twelve bongs of the clock at midnight. This is a fun ritual, only spoiled by the fact that it is almost impossible to buy seedless grapes in Spain, in the rush to chomp down the twelve grapes it is very possible that you end up biting into a seed. A word of advice, there are four higher-pitched chimes just before the main ones at midnight (known as Los Cuartos) that announce the start of the real ones - make sure you don't start eating your grapes. It catches people out every year. For every grape you eat correctly, you will get a months good luck.

Farther Christmas is not the only one who brings presents to the children, lucky children will receive a few presents from Santa but most will receive their presents on the 6th of January when the three kings come. On January the 5th the children go and watch the parade where they see the three kings arrive in their city, then before going to bed they make their Christmas wishes and put their shoes by the door with the hope that in the morning they will have presents, but if they have been naughty they will just get coal!

A typical dessert is eaten on the 6th; "The Roscon de Reyes". It is a large ring shaped cakethat is decorated with candied fruit, symbolic of the Emeralds and Rubies that adorned the robes of the three Kings. Somewhere inside the cake are two prizes, one a small figure of a king which is the winning prize and the other a bean, that is the losing prize. The person with the bean must pay the price of the cake to the winner.