Christmas is my favorite holiday. More than one friend, after I’ve decorated for the season, has said, “It looks like Christmas threw up on your house.” I take that as a compliment! And when we were purging and donating and getting rid of stuff left and right in preparation for the move, what to do with our Christmas decorations was never in question. In fact, six of the seventy boxes we shipped overseas were boxes of my Christmas decorations. I make no apologies and have no regrets!
Some things that are different here, at least close to the city center: live Christmas trees and wreaths on the doors – not really a thing. Neither is Santa, although as with so many things in this global age, American traditions are infiltrating the customs here, and you do see and hear a bit about him. The big present giving holiday of this season here is Día de los Reyes Magos – more on that in a couple of weeks. I wasn’t sad to not drag an expensive, heavy, needle-dropping live tree up to our fourth-floor apartment, and the decoration inside the house were plenty for me.
Where Sevilla really shines (quite literally!) at Christmastime is in the hundreds of thousands of lights and decorations strung all across the city. City workers started hanging them in early October, and as the lighting day approached, I got more and more excited. At 6:30 on December 2nd, the lights switched on, and my Christmas spirit swelled! What a joy to walk the streets that are aglow with so many festive decorations, sometimes made more ethereal by the smoke from literal chestnuts roasting on actual open fires.
And the treats!! Oh, the treats! Turrón, mantecado, polvorón – all the shops were suddenly filled with bins and bins of all the different nougats, cakes, and sweets that are only seen this time of year. The boys have had a wonderful Christmas season sampling them all and rating them from 1-10. Their favorites: limón and canela (cinnamon). Least favorite – olive oil.
Sevilla loves Christmas almost as much as I do!
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