After three months, roaming about on my own, I was happy that my brother was heading to Spain to spend Christmas with me. Now for George and I, Christmas means trifle and lots of it! One year I think we ate three between us with noone else getting much of a look in. So, with that in mind, I set out in search of trifle ingredients.
It took me a while to find jelly, but I eventually came across an ‘unappetising’ sounding grape flavour. I’m a raspberry or boysenberry sort of girl but all you can do, is make do right? With no facilities to whip up a light fluffy sponge cake when you live in a 3×6 room, I needed to find a suitable alternative, one that wasn’t too dense, or too sweet and eventually ended up with a lemon cake of sorts.
Ready-made custard for the same reason as above, and I had the basis to start preparing my trifle. It’s a bit like trying to make lolly cake in Australia, you can substitute ingredients, but it’s just not the same. The end result was a sloppy mess of runny custard, cream and mouldy looking sponge due to the grape jelly being blue.
Lucky looks aren’t everything and it still tasted okay. The rest of our Christmas feasting, apart from the blue-tinged trifle was largely thanks to the generosity of my landlady who never misses an opportunity to ply me with food.
A Spanish Christmas
Trifle aside, a Spanish Christmas certainly differs from those ‘down under’, for one thing it’s winter here so it aligns better with all the Christmas symbolism I grew up with. It’s less commercial and makes more sense.
Think about it, the twelve days of Christmas begin on Christmas Eve, or Nochebuena as it’s called locally and end twelve days later on Three Kings Day with the Feast of the Epiphany. Three Kings Day on the 6th of January commemorates the arrival of the Three Kings to Bethlehem, and just as the Kings brought gifts for the baby Jesus, this is the day that they leave gifts in the homes of Spanish children.
While the eve of Christmas Eve here is rocking with musicians, entertainers and wall-to-wall people, Nochebuena is the polar-opposite. George and I walked into the centre of Coruña and the streets were deserted, not a soul to be seen. This is because it is a time for families and everyone is gathered in their homes to celebrate and feast.
Christmas Eve back home, in contrast, is a frantic scramble of last-minute gift shopping that is only surpassed by the frenzied assault on bottle stores and liquor outlets due to the prohibited sale of alcohol on Christmas Day. You’d be forgiven for thinking people were preparing for some great catastrophe.
Feliz Navidad
The best thing about a Spanish Christmas for me is the effort that goes into turning the place into a Christmas wonderland. Decorations and displays are everywhere, lighting up the streets and plazas with a festive fairy-tale feel.
Then there are the Beléns, impressively elaborate nativity scenes, complete with moving animals and figurines going about their daily business in different houses, farms, rivers and marketplaces. All intricately detailed.
For me, A Spanish Christmas feels a lot like Christmas was intended to be.
Bo Nadal from Galicia