We went to Badajoz on our annual trip to the El Cortes Ingles sale. This is either a tremendous experience or a damp squib, and yesterday was a damp squib. We went armed with our Christmas money and were hoping to find some stainless steel wine glasses. This is because we get through wine glasses – and most breakable things – with alarming regularity. Tiled floors are very unforgiving. We had hoped that we might find something interesting and unbreakable in El Cortes Ingles, however we were disappointed. We took a look on eBay, however, and found some vintage stainless steel wineglasses which we quite liked the look of and were a little different – watch this space…
The schools started back yesterday and I saw some youngsters heading up the road, wobbling on obviously new bikes which would have been given by the 3 Kings on Monday, although some children also get presents on Christmas Eve – but this is a contentious issue!
Some people refer to Father Christmas as ‘the impostor’. They understand Santa Claus, because they know Saint Nickolas, however they don’t understand Father Christmas and how he fits in to the story – where was he when Jesus was born! The secondary school children are even taught that Father Christmas was an invention by Coca Cola! And while I generally keep quiet when they discuss Christmas traditions, particularly with the young ones, as I don’t want to destroy any illusions, but I couldn’t help but speak up for poor old Father Christmas with the older ones. I showed them first the history of Father Christmas and then I showed them the Coca Cola website which makes it quite clear that Coca Cola was responsible for popularizing the vision of Father Christmas we have today with his rosy face and red costume but that the figure of Father Christmas goes back deep into history. Even then I don’t think they believed me, but at least I did my bit for Father Christmas, although I’ll probably keep quiet next year. I can understand why they encourage this view, with the Internet and everything becoming homogenized, it must be difficult for parents to keep the story of the 3 Kings bringing presents real.
Some people worry about Halloween too. There used to be a festival the day after called chaqetia, where children went to the country to eat pomegranates and nuts under the trees. This has become almost non existent now at the expense of Halloween, because which is more exciting – getting dressed up in costume and going door to door ‘scaring’ people – or going to the country to eat a pomegranate? And some people see Christmas going the same way. One problem that I see is that they go back to school the day after the 3 Kings. This means they only have one day to play with their presents, which is why I saw them all heading to school looking so wobbly on their bikes. On the plus side, children must behave over the holidays otherwise the three kings won’t bring them presents, on the negative side, there’s not much time to play with their presents. I wonder how it will develop…