I'm Home!

I’m in the airport, and soon I’ll be home! Of course, by the time this makes it onto the internet, I’ll be home for sure, and by soon, I mean in 14 hours…woo…
But I’m really excited, even though it’s like 9 degrees at home (while it has been 55ish here), and it’s going to be a rather long day. Last night I had to say goodbye to everyone, which was tough, because all of the people that I’m close with here are from all over the place- I’m trying to convince them all to end up visiting Chicago somehow this summer.

SO I said that I would elaborate on Catalan Christmas stuff. Barcelona is actually beautiful during the Christmas season- there are lights all over the place, and even though it’s nowhere near Christmas weather, but if you go to the right places, there are a ton people out shopping, and then it feels like Christmas.

Each main street downtown has a unique sort of Christmas light thing that is suspended over the street. For example, in Barri Gotic down Porta de l’Angel, there are these giant lit up star things suspended over the street. Because it’s Europe, and they love to save energy, they only light them at night from 6-9. I was actually sitting on a bench there a couple of nights ago waiting for the lights to turn on, and when they did, you could hear everyone on the street simultaneously go “Ooooh!”

On to the Christmas traditions! So in the US we celebrate Christmas as our main holiday, and do all of the family togetherness and gift giving on that day. Well Spain (and also part of Latin America- Puerto Rico, for one) has more of an emphasis on Three King’s Day, which is January 6th. My understanding is that the holiday season is more of a private celebration, and they don’t really do big parades or celebrations outside.

On Christmas itself, they don’t really put up a Christmas tree. Now you’ll see people getting mini Christmas trees, like ones 3ish feet tall, just because the tradition has sort of been imported, but it’s not really popular. What is more popular is the nativity scene in miniature. I’m sure you’ve all seen them at home, with the little figures of Mary and Joseph and stuff, but Spanish ones are crazy. I mean, they are still normal cresche sized, though slightly bigger, but they are really intricate.

You can buy them with working lights, and little handmade bridges and palm trees, and figures of chickens and cows and pretty much any possible thing you would expect to be in a scene like that. And there are a fair amount of things that you would not expect there. The one that is most notable is the figure of the Caganer. By the way, the Caganer is purely a Catalan thing, not a rest of Spain thing, so if you talk to someone from Andalucía about this, and say it’s normal in Spain, they will call you a crazy person.

The caganer figure is this little guy that is dressed as a traditional Catalan peasant with a pipe and a red gorra (a cap-y sort of thing, like a smurf). The thing that makes this interesting is he’s not just standing there, he is…pooping. Welcome to Catalunya. Wikipedia says it may have something to do with pre-Christian fertility stuff, but my Catalan professor was like “Yeah, some Catalan probably made that up to excuse our weirdness. It’s not gonna work.”

You’d think the poop ends there, but it does not. Instead of Santa Claus delivering gifts on Christmas, they have this thing called a “Caga Tió” or a “Tió de Nadal,” which translate to “Poop Log” and “Christmas Log,” respectively. So the whole way this works is you have this log- I am not joking when I say that this is an actual log, from the woodpile- and on the front it’s got this creepy face and smile, and it wears the traditional red gorra too. It also has smaller sticks on the front to kind of prop it up like legs.

So when kids are little, on Christmas they but a blanket around the Caga Tió “to keep it warm,” and they sing a song, and hit it with a stick in the hopes that the log “poops” gifts. While the kids are singing this song, the parents sneak small gifts under the blanket and every once in a while go “Look! I think it just pooped something! What is it?!” According to my good friend Wikipedia, here is the song that they sing- Spanish kids I showed this to said its right, but different families have slightly different variations of it.

caga tió,
caga torró,
avellanes i mató,
si no cagues bé
et daré un cop de bastó.
caga tió!"

poop log,
poop turrón,
hazelnuts and cottage cheese,
if you don't poop well,
I'll hit you with a stick,
poop log!

Since the log is relatively small, obviously it can’t pass the larger gifts, so those are brought later by the Three Kings through methods that we consider more conventional. Other than that, I know of no other strange Catalan Christmas traditions… it’s just food and family, like here. I’m bringing home some turrón, which is their Christmas candy, and tons and tons of Christmas gifts.

I actually thought my giant suitcase would be pretty empty on the way home, but it was completely stuffed. I bought most of my Christmas gifts here, and they took up half the suitcase. Also I threw in a bunch of stuff that I had noticed I don’t use/need, some books I bought and finished reading, all my school stuff from this past semester, and other random and sundry stuff.

The thing was like 52 pounds, so it was kind of rough getting from my dorm, to the tram, to the metro to the bus, to the airport. Which was packed, I may add. Thank god for elevators. Of course, once I got off the metro, I had the good luck of using the only metro station in perhaps all of Barcelona that did not have an elevator. That was a great experience. Then I tripped all over myself trying the get the monster on to the bus, and looked ridiculous. But it’s on the plane now, and I don’t plan on actually carrying it anywhere until I come back to Barcelona (:

I leave Chicago on the 16th or so to come back. I probably won’t update over break, since the whole point of this thing is writing about Spain and travel, but who knows. Have a good holiday season everyone!