Happy new year everyone! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!

Even though Christmas has been and gone I got thinking about Christmas in Spain and I remembered that our Christmas day, being the 25th of December, isn't exactly the same in Spain. They celebrate on the 6th January. As Spain is traditionally a very religious country the three wise men are very important. They are seen everywhere in Spain at Christmas, and people from all walks of life dress up as them.

I found an article off the website for the city of Barcelona ( Ajuntament de Barcelona, www.bcn.es), about the festivities there but I can't seem to paste the information so I will have to just summarise it:

It was posted on the 5th January and say that the mayor of Barcelona Jordi Hereu greeted the three kings, Melchior, Gaspar and Balthasar. It says the Mayor handed each of the three Kings the key to the city so that they could enter every household in Barcelona during the night and deliver their gifts to every child. Thousands of people braved the rain, unwilling to miss the chance to see the procession and to hand the Kings their letters.

I will have to look more and see whether the Three Kings in Spain are an equivalent to Father Christmas here in Britain but I like the idea of how festive it all seems and how everybody gets involved in the streets.


Andrea xxx