The Night that Christmas Began

Apparently soup in Spain comes in a cup...

Summer time in the south of Spain is filled with tons of activities. From morning to night, and then all through the night, there are events, festivals, fiestas, música, carnivals, beach parties, and tourist events all over the place. Even in our little town of Mijas, there were several nights a week of music and dancing in the main plaza, including a local artisan's market, food, and dance lessons. Unfortunately, the minute chilly weather hit, all the festivities abruptly ceased, and for the past two months, there haven't been many activities around southern Spain except an occasional parade or market, and of course, Halloween and All Saint's Day celebrations. Consequently, I've spent a lot of time this term just hanging out in Mijas or the nearby city of Fuengirola, spending time with my classmates and doing lots of studying and learning.

I was starting to go a little stir crazy, missing and wishing for all the excitement and fun of summertime festivities, like our beach and pool days on the weekends and nights dancing in the plaza. Luckily, the beginning of the Christmas season this week made that wish come true!

Plaza de la Constitucion

Up until now, I have been completely unaware of how the Spaniards celebrate Christmas. I know that in Italy all the streets are lit up and decorated during the holiday season to create a pleasant and cheery Christmas atmosphere, but I wasn't sure if the Spaniards did things the same way. After a trip into the city center of Malaga this weekend, Christmas lights hanging over all the streets and decorations everywhere revealed that they most certainly do!

Friday nights with G42 are usually our Tapas nights where everyone associated with G42 and our friends in the community come over to our house to hang out, talk, play games, and eat Spanish tapas. This week however, enough people couldn't come that we just decided to cancel tapas and go out to dinner in Malaga instead. For the whole past week, Evin (one of our interns) had her parents and sister in town visiting, so a few of us interns joined Evin and her family for a meal and a nice stroll around Malaga. I'd been to Malaga twice before that (that's right... even with living thirty minutes from the city for 5 months, I had only been two times!), and both times were in the day during siesta time, so there weren't a whole lot of people out and about around the center. There are some really nice shopping streets and areas to dine, but they always seemed really dead and empty when I was there.

Well I found out when the Spanish people come out.

At dinner with Evin's parents

Everything shuts down during siesta for a reason - so everyone can go home and rest before coming back out and spending the entire evening and much of the night out on the town. A Friday night on the streets of Malaga couldn't be more opposite than the calm and quiet afternoons I had spent there previously. As we walked around after our delicious dinner at an earthy, organic restaurant where we dined on an outdoor patio area, I was thrilled to join the bustle and hum on the streets, strolling alongside Spanish families with their little kids, young couples on a romantic walk, and groups of teenagers hanging out together. We passed hundreds of tapas bars with Spanish friends clumped around tall tables, sipping on Sangria or Mojitos and enjoying small hor d'oeurves to accompany their drink. People were shopping, running errands, and taking advantage of the open stores that had been closed most of the afternoon during siesta hours. Walking through the busy streets, we noticed that there were Christmas lights hanging up above, strung across the streets from building to building, but none of them were turned on yet. Our evening stroll delivered us right into the Plaza de la Constitucion, the main square in Malaga, where we saw a massive Christmas tree and a stage set up for what looked like a very large event. I asked someone what was going on and when the Christmas lights would turn on, and was informed there would be a big celebration the next night when all the lights were turned on.

Quite disappointed that we had come only one day too early to see all the beautiful lights, we immediately began brainstorming ways to come back the next night and enjoy the festivities. Since we live in Mijas, it's really difficult to get all the way out to Malaga. A thirty minute trip in the car ends up being close to two hours when using the bus and train, and without a car, we don't have the luxury of staying out late and are always pressed for time to make it back before the last bus leaves at 10. Considering Spaniards start their nightly activities at nine or ten, we knew the trip wasn't even worth making without a car. So we set out to convince one of our G42 teachers to accompany us and drive us out to see the Christmas lights turn on in Malaga the next night. As you can imagine, we were successful :)

Dave Fredrickz and Evin's parents in Malaga

Near the old Roman Theater in Malaga

The next morning started early as official Moving Day for the Hearn family. Fortunately they were only moving to another house in town just a few minutes away, so nothing had to be transported too far, but there was still plenty of work to be done. We emptied the old house of all the boxes and heavy furniture, and while most of the group was at the old house loading up the moving truck they had rented, I was at the new house with another girl carrying all the light things up into the new house. As it just so happens, the new house is up at the top of a hill that can only be reached by climbing several lengthy flights of stairs, including the last flight of stairs to get to their second floor apartment. For some reason, I opted to make more trips of lighter loads than to carry heavier loads and make less trips.

Needless to say, my legs are SORE. ;-)

When all the moving was done and the furniture unloaded into the new house, we gathered around on whatever empty space we could find on the floor and indulged in a gourmet lunch of bread and chicken... the perfect snack after a busy day of intense manual labor! After moving though, I didn't stop but went back to our house and decided that today was THE day.

The day when Christmas begins.

The day when the Christmas tree goes up.

In my enthusiasm, I willingly dove into a dark and spooky closet with mysterious scents wafting from within, all for the sole intention of finding the Christmas tree. I scrambled through boxes and dust, bumped my head a few times on the three foot high ceiling, and fumbled amidst unknown peculiar objects until I eventually emerged victoriously with a long brown box and few cartons of colorful baubles. I was ecstatic.

If you don't know this about me, I love holidays. I absolutely love the chance to decorate, listen to fun music, do something different than normal every day activities, and celebrate special occasions by making lifelong memories with family and friends. There's something about special celebrations that brings warmth to my soul and joy to my heart. Unfortunately, most people get so caught up in the busyness of life and are so overwhelmed by the frequency of holidays like Thanksgiving, New Years, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Halloween, Fourth of July, and Easter that the joy of celebrating holidays seems more like a burden than a pleasure. But for me, no matter how many years I've experienced Christmas, I'm still just as excited when it comes around again the next year, because each year brings new experiences and new memories to enjoy.

So I immediately got to work, screwing together the parts of the tree and delicately positioning each bauble on the branches. Outside it was warm and sunny, a beautiful November day, just the kind we always had in Phoenix when I was growing up on those Thanksgiving weekends when we'd put up all the Christmas decorations - listening to Amy Grant Christmas music and hauling the huge chests out from the garage to get all the ornaments and decorations out, the whole time leaving the front door open to let the sunshine and some fresh air into the house. This day in Spain was quite the same, and leaving the front door open proved to be quite entertaining as I observed many-a-tourist's incredulous face and nosy curiosity as they walked by and peered in, trying to figure out who the insane person was that was putting up a Christmas tree in November!

That's the thing about Spain (and all of Europe for that matter) - Christmas season lasts until the Epiphany on January 6, so it starts much later than our American tradition of hanging up the decorations the week after Thanksgiving. So anyone who even thinks about putting up a Christmas tree before the second week of December is just absolutely absurd! Even Peter (our intern from the Czech Republic) came down the stairs as I was admiring our cute little tree and said, "What is that??" To which I obviously replied, "A Christmas tree...." and to which he expressed his disapproval of early Christmas by saying, "But why now? It's still November..."

But I didn't care :) I just sat there proudly looking at our happy and bright little tree in the corner thinking how thankful I was that I got to experience a little piece of Christmas even here in Spain.

And the Christmas continued on through the rest of the evening as we hopped in the car and rode down to Malaga to experience the city once again, but this time in the glory of the twinkling lights.

And there were people everywhere.

If I had thought the city was busy the night before, it was nothing compared to how busy it was this night. Our group attempted to stroll down the Calle de Larios, the main shopping street with all the beautiful lights, but we couldn't move and could barely breathe with all the people all around. We quickly ducked onto a side street and found our way to a quieter area in town where we could sit and enjoy drinks together in the glow of the Malaga Cathedral. We decided to do things Spanish style for the night, so we spent our time hopping around from restaurant to restaurant, having coffee, tapas, and drinks and enjoying each others' company together. Of course, we took plenty of pictures in front of the massive Christmas tree in the Plaza de la Constitucion and lights on Calle de Larios and after several different restaurants, concluded that it was time to go home.

My roommate, Chandler, and I tend to like to go out and stay out late, so assuming the rest of our group would head back home around midnight, we made plans to stay in a hostel in the city center of Malaga. We booked a cheap one, knowing that we wouldn't spend a whole lot of time sleeping there anyways, but it actually turned out to be quite nice! After a quick change of clothes and some freshening up, Chandler and I headed back out into the city to experience some Malagan nightlife. By that hour, the families and older people had cleared out, leaving the entire city filled with young people our age hopping around from pub to bar to disco. I couldn't believe how busy it was. Apparently New York is not the only city that never sleeps! Chandler and I enjoyed our time bouncing along with the crowd and walking into random doors along the street, not knowing what was behind them. We definitely encountered some unique venues along the way, but relished the adventure of discovering new places and a new scene.

The next morning (which was really more like afternoon), Chandler and I finally got up out of bed, checked out of our hostel, and started our day off with nothing other than Frozen Yogurt. You can imagine my excitement :) Leaving our hostel, we walked around the corner to find our way back to the main street when suddenly we heard music and a crowd ahead of us. Right where the streets crossed, we were forced to come to a halt by all the people in front of us. As I looked down the road a few meters, I saw a group of young men carrying a large statue on their shoulders and knew immediately what was going on - a processional. The smell of incense permeated through the air and sweet voices called out in melodious song. I remembered back to the processionals and parades we saw in the summer time and how many hours it took before the statue of the Virgen actually passed us, so I yelled out to Chandler in excitement. The people all around us had to have been waiting for hours to see what just so happened to be passing by right when we walked up! We totally lucked out.

After the old ladies with candles walked through and the men carrying the Virgen statue on their shoulders disappeared from our sight, we continued on through the city and retraced the steps of the parade route, following the path of melted wax drops that were dribbled all over the ground. We eventually made our way to the train and plopped down into our seats, content yet exhausted from a long and busy, but fantastic weekend.

And it's only the first weekend of the Christmas season. :)