Written by a COINED Teach Abroad participantTravelling is all about discovering new cultures, and, if like me, you have the chance of being abroad around Christmas, then you will without doubt come across new ways to celebrate the birth of Jesus. When I arrived in
Barcelona a month ago, having never been to Catalonia before, I knew I would uncover different Christmas traditions; however, little did I know I would have so much fun along the way.
I had already encountered new festive customs when I moved to England from my native France ten years ago. Whereas in France, Christmas involves spending eight hour solid at the dinner table, going through the fifteen or so courses my auntie had spent the last forty eight hours frantically preparing, English Christmas appeared to be a much simpler affair and followed a few simple rules:
The whole Christmas dinner has to fit on one single plate
It has to be eaten wearing a paper hat that can be found in a Christmas cracker
It has to be followed by the Queen's speech on TV
As I am always keen to introduce exotic traditions back home, my family now has to enjoy the eight hour meal wearing a paper hat. And thanks to my Catalan host family, I have now more traditions to bring back to France with me this Christmas.
I started learning about Catalan xmas during the English lessons I give to the 14 year old child of the family. One day that he seemed particularly uninspired by my explanations of the present perfect progressive, I decided to switch to the jollier topic of Christmas. I asked when they were going to make the Christmas tree, something that is particularly important to me: at home I have a cupboard entirely dedicated to baubles, tinsels, flashing lights, fake snow... He replied that they were not going to make a Christmas tree. My disappointment at having to spend the run up to xmas with a family of Scrooges was short lived: "We have a log instead of a tree." At that point, I struggled to see how a wooden log could possibly rival my beloved tree, but after having been shown various sketches and diagrams involving arrows and the log's digestive system, I was amazed to find out that the Catalans had probably come up with the most extraordinary and unexpected thing in the world: a shitting log in a hat! The kid then taught me the song, the grandmother joined in and before I knew it we were all merrily singing about a log having to shit out presents in order to escape corporal punishment:
"Caga tió,caga torrósi no et donaréun cop de bastó”
When I thought things could not get any better, we moved onto the subject of the nativity scene. Now, this is something I am very familiar with, the nativity scene (la crèche, in French) being my mum's pride and joy at xmas : in my house, no less than a hundred miniature peasants and their cattle celebrate each year the birth of baby Jesus in a pretty stable equipped with all mod cons, while the three kings and their camels dutily make their journey across the living room to finally reach the party on the the twelfth night. "Ah, yes... But do you have the Caganer?" asked the grandmother. "the what?" Again, with much miming and a few drawings, I came to understand that, in Catalunya, someone takes a dump in the nativity scene! To symbolise fertility, of course.
How marvelous! Not only had I found the perfect Christmas present for my mother but, at that point, I knew that, with such imaginative customs, Barcelona would be a great great place to prepare for Christmas and spend the next six months in.
Bon Nadal, Merry Christmas and Joyeux Noël!
