Christmas Traditions- part one

There are so many it´s hard to know where to start. First leading up to Christmas there is a lottery called ´El Gordo de Navidad´ that seems to be quite popular all accross Spain. The numbers are drawn and sung out by children two days before Christmas on national television. On a bit of a side note when I first saw posters for the lottery I thought they were ads for a strange films about a fat man who arrived for Christmas. From what I understand the jackpot was 13 million Euros. My friend´s mom suggested that the lottery day is also the day of health for everyone who does not win to remember to be happy about their health.

On December 24th I went to a small town outside of Bilbao to see Olentxero, the basque santa, come down from the mountain. According to one of the legends, which my friend Goizalde translated from Euskerra to Spanish for me, he was the youngest of a group of giants called ´Gentils´ that lived at one time in the basque mountains making coal. The race of giants were known to be dark, hairy men who were hardworking and caring. One day the giants saw a bright light in the sky and they knew ´Kismi´, the Christ was born and that their pagan world would come to an end. To try and escape the light all of the giants started to run and when they stopped a moment to rest a large rock, known as ´Gentileria´ fell from the sky killing all except Olentxero. He continued to run and run and finally arrived at a town where his friends lived. As he entered he yelled into the streets ´Kismi ha nacido´, the Christ is born. All of the townsfolk came out into the street bringing food and drink for the messenger who was very hungry and thirsty. He drank 5 litres of wine and ate so much food that he could no longer stand up. The towns folk built a ladder like support to carry him around the town and continue the fiesta.

In some ways today Olentxero has now evolved into the North American Santa Claus. In the traditional songs he is desribed as a wise man with a large head and belly. He wears a basque Chapela hat and smokes a pipe. We had to sing the following song in Euskerra so that he would come down from the mountain:

Ator, ator mutil etxera,
gaztaina zimelak jatera.
Gabon gaba ospatutzeko
aitaren ta amaren ondoan.
Ikusiko dok aita barrezka,
ama be poz atseginez

Eragiok mutil
aurreko danbolin horri.
Gaztainak erre artian,
gaztainak erre artian
txipli, txapla, plun.
Gabon gaba pozik igaro dai

I don´t really understand any of it except I was told ´ator´ means ´come´ and Olentxero made his entrance with his donkey to a crowd of cheering children. They got to sit on his knee and were given a hug and bag of a candy. For those that are naughty there is candy coal. For the rest of the morning we listened to traditional music and improvised dance steps. It also seemed to be ´Dia del pan´ and there was a bread competition with about fifty loaves of bread. Three judges sampled slices rating the crust, taste, texture and appearance while sipping on wine.

The basque tradition is to have a small family meal on Christmas eve and a gift exchange. The next day on the 25th I was invited to join the larger family meal with a group of about thirty people for a feast of seafood and other dishes.