Caganer & Caga Tio

I thought I would take this opportunity to share a few things with everyone about Christmas in Spain. #1 - I'm very sorry to say but I won't be mailing anything home for you all this year, not because I don't love you ;) But in fact because I love you TOO much and the box I prepared was very big and heavy and in the end I decided it could wait an extra month until February! So I'm sorry, please don't take it personally.

#2 - Caganer - There is a strange obsession with poop in their christmas traditions. Here I will take a few things from Wikipedia to help explain this little figure. Traditionally it is a little pilgrim pooping, but of course now you can find everyone, including Obama, Shakira, Footballers, everyone!

"The caganer is a particular and highly popular feature of modern Catalan nativity scenes. It is believed to have entered the nativity scene by the late 17th-early 18th century, during the Baroque period...and some reasons for the figure

• The Caganer, by creating faeces, is fertilizing the Earth. According to the ethnographer, Joan Amades, it was a "customary figure in pessebres [i.e. nativity scenes] in the 19th century, because people believed that this deposit [symbolically] fertilized the ground of the pessebre, which became fertile and ensured the pessebre for the following year, and with it, the health of body and peace of mind required to make the pessebre, with the joy and happiness brought by Christmas near the hearth. Placing this figurine in the pessebre brought good luck and joy and not doing so brought adversity."^[6]
• The Caganer represents the equality of all people: regardless of status, race, or gender, everyone defecates.
• Increased naturalism of an otherwise archetypal (thus idealised) story, so that it is more believable, more real and can be taken more seriously.
• The idea that God will manifest himself when he is ready, without regard for whether we human beings are ready or not.
• The Caganer reinforces the belief that the infant Jesus is God in human form, with all that being human implies."

#3 - Caga Tio - Once again let me have Wikipedia help with this one! I took some very interesting pictures of this event happening at the Christmas Market the other day that I will try to put up tomorrow. Instead of lining up to sit on Santa's lap? They line up to hit a giant log with sticks and afterwards they get a candy! Hahah , so amusing for people who don't know the tradition.

"On Christmas day or, depending on the particular household, on Christmas Eve, one puts the tió partly into the fireplace and orders it to "shit" (the fire part of this tradition is no longer as widespread as it once was, since many modern homes do not have a fireplace). To make him "shit", one beats him with sticks, while singing various songs of Tió de Nadal.

The tió does not drop larger objects, as those are considered to be brought by the Three Wise Men. It does leave candies, nuts and torrons. Depending on the part of Catalonia, it may also give out dried figs. When nothing is left to "shit", it drops a salt herring, a head of garlic, an onion or "urinates". What comes out of the tió is a communal rather than individual gift, shared by everyone present."

Well, that seems to be it for today! This week has 2 Holidays (Today and Thursday) so most of the city has of course, taken the liberty of taking the ENTIRE week off! I hope to get out and take some photos of the lights around Pl. Catalunya and the temporary skating rink they have set up there! Hope everyone is having a great week! Less than 2 weeks til the big day!

<3