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Copyright © 2003 by Manfred P.. All rights reserved.

Dec 24, 2003 - Jan 6, 2004

A Different Christmas

Christmas Customs in the Basque Country

by

Manfred P.

Keywords: Basque Country, Bilbao, Lesaka, tourist, travel trip report, travel log, travelogue.

Christmas is becoming more and more uniform throughout the world because of globalization. Christmas around the world in all the countries influenced by Christianity seems to entail eating and drinking binges around the Christmas days. Usually this boils down to a large feast on December 24th as well as on December 25th. Together with the feasting a central element of the celebrations is the gift giving. Depending in which country you live this takes place either at night on the 24th or first thing in the morning on the 25th. Santa Claus or Baby Jesus (Niño Jesus, Christkind) comes to deliver the gifts. The older generation, in other words our parents and grandparents, also maintained a religious dimension to this all. To those with strong religious beliefs this is a time of contemplation, a time of reflection, a time of quietness and peace. They celebrate the birth of Jesus late at night on the 24th of December as the most festive occasion of the year.

This is what most people from the western hemisphere are used to. But some cultural differences have survived. A tiny bit of diversity still is alive. The Basque Country features a partially unique Christmas culture. So, what's different? There is a character called Olentzero; there are frequently no gifts on December 24; instead they are given on January 6th. Furthermore the gifts are not delivered by Santa with his reindeers but by the three kings from the Orient.

According to Basque traditions Olentzero comes to town late at night on the 24th of December to drop off presents for the kids. There about 1001 variations of the old tradition. Over the centuries the "story" of Olentzero has been modified over and over again to adapt it to the new times. Also, different villages have created their own interpretations of the tale.

The legend dates back more than a thousand years. The first written account of Olentzero is from Lope de Isasi from the 16th century. Back then he was called "Onentzaro" ("Time of the good one"). My favorite version is the oldest one. Thousands of years ago there was a legendary tribe of mythical giants. Olentzero was one of them. They lived in the forests in the valleys of the Pyrenees, in Navarra, in the area of the village Lesaka. One day people of this tribe discovered a glowing cloud on the sky. They feared that this celestial phenomenon is the divine sign of the arrival of the upcoming birth of Jesus. None of them could look at this bright cloud except for a very old, nearly blind man. They held him up to take a look. He turned pale and confirmed their wildest fear: Yes, this is the sign, Jesus will be born soon. They feared vast changes would come jointly with the arrival and a demise of their times. After foreseeing this terrible news, he only saw a solution in terminating his life. So he asked his friends to throw him off the highest cliff. They complied. The group of giants on the way down the mountain tripped, all came to fall, and head over heels they fell to their death. All, except one. The only survivor Olentzero hiked to the villages in the valley and with his sickle brutally cut the throat of those people who ate too much on the day before the arrival of Christ, i.e. on the 24th of December. He himself was not the fasting type. He is a thick glutton who can eat a barrow-load of meat which he washes down with strong liquor. No surprise that he is frequently drunk and irritable.

Nice story, isn't it? In the last century this legend had to be adapted. Young kids don't like to hear about grumpy old man who slice open the throat of normal citizens and let them bleed to death. A more civilized version had to be created. More precisely the church wanted to stop pagan rites and turn people into good Christians. The church wanted to turn the pagan custom related to the winter solstice into a Christian feast with a Christian-like hero. This is the result.

In this cleansed, Christianized variation Olentzero is a human, a humble man with a heart filled with love. As a new born he was left alone in the woods and a fairy with long blond hair found him, adopted him, gave him the name Olentzero and raised him. He turned into a strong man and worked as a charcoal maker, a collier, turning wood into coal by burning it in a kiln. He would carry the heavy bags of charcoal to the villages to sell it. He was hard-working and gifted with his hands. He carved wooden animals, toys and dolls when not working as a collier. When he had a big coal bag full of toys he hiked to the village in the valley and distributed the wooden figures amongst the kids because it made him happy to see the kids happy. He played with all afternoon. The kids loved him and Olentzero came back whenever he had finished another bag of toys. Whenever he came to the village the kids surrounded him. One day as he came down to the village he found a house in flames. He dashed towards the house finding crying kids behind the closed windows. Without hesitation he ran into the house and freed the kids by lowering them from an upstairs window. With everyone safe he went downstairs when the house collapsed under the fire, burying him. The people from the village had gathered by now outside the burning ruins and they suddenly saw a white flash leaving the flames and heading towards the sky. The fairy that had found him in the woods had come to be with him in this moment. She said, "Olentzero you have such a good heart, you even gave your life for others. You should not die. You shall live forever, making toys for all the kids in this village and in the whole Basque Country." This is how Olentzero comes to all the Basque kids on 24th of December bringing them gifts.

But there are many more variants of the Olentzero legend. In some villages they believe he comes down the chimneys. He lowers himself on his sickle and cuts the throat of the kids that misbehaved during the last year. Others say he has 365 eyes. Others say he was a shepard. Most say he comes into the village as a messenger to announce the birth of the baby Christ. Some say he can drink 120 liters of wine. He usually has a pipe in his mouth and sometimes he has a codfish tail. Others again hang small straw figures representing Olentzero in the windows.

While the myth of Olentzero is ancient, the actual celebration of it is a rather recent custom. Some say it is a custom pushed and favored by politicians over the last 50 years. After the death of the dictator Franco, local Basque politicians wanted to strengthen local custums, national identidy and pride. For these reasons the Basque politicians turned the story into a living custom with performances and processions. Only since 1950 people dress up as Olentzeros, make processions with life-sized clothed straw figures and burn Olentzero figures in bonfires. With these new Olentzero celebrations came also the custom of giving coal (real coal) if you were bad, and look-alike coal made of sugar if you were good. Remember that coal is a symbol of the Olentzero as it represents his profession as coal maker.

There are many other traditions that related to wood and wood fires. One of them is a tradition on decline over the last decades. This tradition is actually Catalan and not Basque. When my wife was a little girl the sister of her grandmam still observed this custom. The custom dates back to when all homes had an open wood fire and a chimney. A large wooden log (not burning) some 5 feet long is placed in the center of a room, usually leaning against a chair. This wooden log is called "tio". The "tio" is covered with a blanket or a sheet. The whole family gets together, taking each other by the hand. Songs are sung jointly. The lyrics of the song includes lines like "padre nuestro, now come feasts, glorious feasts, we will eat chicken, we will eat turkey, 'tio' take a shit, or we will hit you with a stick". With the last words each family member beats the "tio" with a stick. Singing the kids and the adults alike walk and dance around the log as well as around the house. As they return to the log the blanket is removed and, surprise, surprise, there are small gifts, traditionally food like a bottle of wine, a pan of prepared fish, under the log. The gifts are removed, placed on the dining table, the blanket is placed again over the log and the singing, hitting and dancing around the house continues. When they come back to the "tio", the tio had taken another crap and left more dishes behind. The game continues until the dinner table is full and the feast begins. Needless to say that it was an adult family member who placed the food under the blanket while the rest of the family danced around the house.

In the Basque Country the real gift giving takes place, not at Christmas, but on 6th of January when the Three Kings come from the Orient. This is a Spanish tradition and is observed throughout Spain, including in the Basque Country as well as in Cataluña. While for most Basques the Three Kings or the Three Wise Men are the main celebration, some very nationalistic Basque families reject celebrating the Three Kings Day because it is a Spanish, i.e. anti-Basque, tradition. The Kings arrive on the 5th in the evening with a lot of pomp and fanfare. In Bilbao specifically they arrive by boat and then they transfer to floats. On these colorful floats the three kings parade through the city center to the cheer of the children. Before the kids go to bed at night on the 5th they leave their shoes in the kitchen or living room hoping that the kings will visit them late at night when they are asleep and leave presents for them. In the morning of the 6th when they get up the first thing is to dash to their shoes and impatiently open the presents left behind in or around their shoes by the benevolent kings. The Three Kings (and not Olentzero) are the ones who bring the more valuable presents. Adults usually don't get any presents at all during Christmas. Olentzero only brings presents to the children, not to the adults. And in the more traditional families the presents from Olentzero to the kids are the simpler, smaller presents. This is more or less in line with the modern globalization. So Basque kids, that see on TV Christmas celebrations and gift giving in other countries, do not feel left out; and so that their patience is not pushed to the limit they get some smaller presents on the 25th of December which keeps them patient until the 6th of January. The Kings on 6th of January deliver their gifts not only to the kids, but now also the adults are on the receiving side.

The latest adaptation of customs that evolved only in the last five years is that Christmas Eve is becoming more and more a party night like New Years Eve. People go out to bars in big crowds, drink champagne, party, dance the night away in discos to a rhythmic beat, and use bangers and smaller fireworks to make noise during the night. As you can see traditions are changing fast. Soon people will decide to forget about Olentzero and the Three Kings and instead celebrate Santa Claus in global uniformity.

And how do all these celebrations end nowadays? Just like in any other western country: with the largest sales of the year - the after-Christmas blow-out sales that kick off on January 7th. Happy shopping!

If you get a chance to come to the Basque Country during the Christmas Season, don't spend too much time in the shops, go out and see the Olentzero processions on December 24th and let the many legends of this celebrity go through your head. Come soon, before the old unique traditions are swept away by the new ones.