Classics at Christmas

In January 2006, when I started this blog, anything I wrote about things Spanish was new. With the passing years repetition crept in. Nowadays I often repeat things. I have almost no alternative. My only hope is that new readers will think the regurgitated topics are new.

I was playing with the idea of writing, yet another, Christmas piece, then I considered the number of seasonal entries I've written over the years. Thinking economy of effort and suchlike I decided to do a BBC and to trot out the old stuff again as though it were classic. I have to say that even just tagging up the entries bored me after a while. I hope they don't bore you right from the start and whatever number you plough through, before surrendering, you find something informative or amusing or, at least, readable.  

Click on the link to get to the older post. Sorry about all the repetition over the years and please remember that what was true in the past may have changed slightly over time.

Christmas begins The Christmas lottery

They think it's all over This one's about how the dates of Christmas are not the same as in the UK

Eating at Christmas A self explanatory title I think

And some lemons for the prawns This one is about differences between UK and Spanish Christmases

17 million Spaniards or 63% of the population earn less than 1,000€ gross per month and 4,422,359 are out of work. This is one of the blogs that has the largest number of hits. I suspect it's for the title which has almost nothing to do with the content. There's a bit about what a Christmassy day the 5th January is 

Bring me pine logs hither Mention of our venerable Christmas tree. in fact we replaced it for this 2023 Christmas

Seasonal snippets All sorts of Christmas things - for once the title is a good reflection of the content

Losing my grip Mainly about a Christmas lottery advert

Rather reassuring The Christmas run up story of years and years ago

Tales of turrón This one doesn't read badly after all this time - obviously enough it's about turrón

Stamping the Christmas cards Just what it says

Underwear, grapes and bubbly New Year's traditions

The goose is getting fat  Those not quite so obvious Christmas things

Drawing to a close  Christmas ends with the Three Kings in Spain

Not a dry eye in the house Christmas concerts and community

Jingle bells  I think it's a bit of a Christmas comparison in two countries

They think it's all over The things that happen in January as part of Christmas. I've even used the title before!

Pale blue dot Christmas lights

Fat chance The Christmas lottery - again

Fattening of geese Christmas cards and British supermarkets

So this is Christmas It seems to be an all embracing article

A low fi buyer's guide to the Christmas lottery

A couple of chums were talking about buying their weekly Euromillones (EuroMillions) ticket. I asked after their Christmas lottery purchases. They sort of knew what I meant but they sort of didn't. I saw an opening for a blog.

Just to be even handed O.N.C.E., the organisation for people with a visual impairment, run a Christmas lottery and there's a State lottery, el Niño, to coincide with Three Kings. I'm sure they are all fine and dandy but the one that counts, the big one, is the fat one - el Gordo - drawn on 22 December.

In truth, el Gordo isn't quite so fat. A winning ticket is worth 4 million euros. The thing that most people buy though isn't a ticket, it's a decimo; a tenth of a ticket. If you buy a ticket from one of the State Lottery Administraciones and you pay 20€ for it then you have a decimo. 

If you want to have a go you will see the ticket/decimos (I'm going to stop that now) on sale all over the place. As well as in the lottery administrations they're in shops and bars and petrol stations; in fact if you have contact with any Spanish organisation near Christmas you will, likely, be the target of a high pressure sales pitch. That's because the Friends of the Wine, the Pigeon Fanciers and every other group in Spain buys tickets to sell on. They raise funds by adding a few euros to the ticket's face value. The 20€ decimo from your Badminton Club will probably cost 23€ or 24€. With a decimo, if you win the fat one, you'll only get 400,000€, a tenth of four million euros. Actually it will be less because the tax people will take 72,000€ of your haul.

As I said a full ticket, or series, consists of 10 decimos and an individual decimo costs 20€. This means a full ticket costs 200€. Each decimo from the same ticket carries the same five figure number. In fact, this year, there will be 180 series of each number so there are, potentially, 1,800 decimos with the same number. This is why the Christmas lottery is so popular. Unlike most lotteries, where there is one big winner, el Gordo spreads its largesse through hundreds and thousands of people with a good chance of a decent, if not spectacular, payout.

The lottery tickets come from an official vendor, an administración. Each administración, or lottery shop, buys as many tickets as it thinks it can sell. They always buy a lot of the same number so the numbers tend to be grouped in a geographical area. Imagine that you're the boss of a medium sized firm. You may buy 10 series of decimos, all with the same number, and give one to everyone who works for you. If you're a less altruistic boss you might sell the tickets in the staff room. Even then it's likely that a good percentage of your workforce will end up with the same lottery number. Families often do the thing where senior family members buy and distribute numbers around the family. Imagine what happens if the number comes up. Imagine that the winning number is spread amongst cousins, uncles and grandmas, that all the workers at the engineering works have the same winning number or all the players and season ticket holders of the town football club, the domino playing pensioners club or indeed lots of people living in the same town. The big prize, 400,000€ per decimo, may not be a fortune but it would pay off most mortgages and leave a bit over for a nice holiday and a new BMW. And imagine the effect if, say, 200 people had the winning number in La Romana, Pinoso or Monóvar.

The Christmas lottery numbers are drawn as whole numbers, like raffle tickets. There is an actual ball with the five figure number engraved on it. On 22 December the children from San Ildefonso School pick up the number as it rolls out of a big tombola thing called a bombo. There is another bombo which has balls for all the prizes and they are engraved with cash values. So the first child sings out the number which matches a decimo and a second child sings out a cash amount. Most of the prizes are just 1,000€ but there are five prizes that have a greater value, including el Gordo. As some of the prizes are repeated there are actually 15 "important" numbers as well as lots and lots of other prizes. Bear in mind that there are 1,800 of each number so even if the prize is just 1,000€ there are potentially 1,800 people who will get 100€ back for their 20€ stake. Even if you don't win el Gordo the chances of you getting something back, una pedrea, are much, much higher than in most lotteries

So, all you have to do is go to a lottery administración, to a bar, stop that bloke in the street who has a number in his hat, join a sewing circle or the local Scalextric racers and you'll soon have a decimo. You can even do it online if you want. Once you have your ticket or tickets you just wait till December 22nd. If you want you can watch the draw on the telly or via streaming or listen to it on the radio but most people watch a few minutes and then check their tickets later. As well as the official site all the newspapers and telly channels have online number checkers but if you are digitally challenged just take the number to any lottery shop and they'll tell you if you have a winner or not. 

There is another way you may end up participating in the draw and that is if someone gives you, or sells you, a fraction of a decimo. A very typical example might be that a petrol station gives you a  "participación" for every 50€ worth of petrol you buy. Participaciones/participations vary in value but they are often worth 50c or maybe 1€, though I saw one the other day on sale for 2.40€. What the garage has done is to buy some decimos. They then given away a ticket with the same number. If the garage decimo wins in the lottery then anyone with one of their participaciones can claim their percentage of the winning ticket.

Oh, and if you decide to get your ticket from your favourite bar you could also get involved in another Spanish Christmas tradition; the cesta. Cesta means basket and most bars have a sort of Christmas hamper loaded with food, booze, choccies etc. It's usually just a case of picking a numbered square and writing your name and phone numbers in it. 

There are stacks of older blogs about el gordo and the christmas lottery. Just put the words in the search box at the left top of the page and you'll find several.

So this is Christmas

I haven't spent Christmas in the UK for umpteen years, so I may not be as expert on British customs as I think. Nonetheless, unless things have changed drastically, the first tentative signs of Christmas show up in the shops in September. By November the telly is full of Christmas ads full of good cheer, bonhomie and cute robins. Cities, towns and villages start to turn on lights from mid-December and even with online shopping I'm sure that shopping centres, supermarkets and places like restaurants and pubs get busier and busier through December, all building up to the big day. Finally, it's Christmas Day. You do your best to look pleased with the illuminated pullover and the novelty underwear and you console yourself by setting about the mountains of food. Boxing Day you might stay at home to and eat and drink more, or it may be that you have to visit relatives. Maybe, instead, you might thirst for action after so much slouching around and go for a bracing walk or head out to one of those unmissable Boxing Day sales. And that's Christmas really, well the Christmas for those of us who are reasonably financially secure. There's obviously the New Year's Eve stuff to come next week but that's not really Christmas, is it?

Now I've done Spanish Christmases to death in previous blogs but I did think I might be able to do a bit on the organisation and pretend it was something new. Just as I said that I may be wrong about British Christmases I have to remind you that any generalisations I make about Spanish Christmases are generalisations. 

Spaniards have their ways of organising things. That methodology may be better or worse but, usually, it's just different. Think about supermarkets. Being a Briton I might expect the Nutella to be alongside the jam but it isn't, it's with the sweets and chocolate. Think about what you consider to be morning, something that stretches till noon, whereas Spaniards consider that it runs till lunchtime, somewhere around 2pm. Consider how Spaniards often share food in the middle of the table, rather than claiming their own private portions. Consider how there are no continuity announcers on Spanish telly. Nothing but smallish details but things that might surprise someone new to Spain. 

It's a bit the same with Christmas. It starts later in Spain than in the UK, only a bit but definitely later. Even Vigo, where they really go to town on Christmas lights, doesn't switch on till around November 20th. Pundits always say that the starting pistol sounds with the Christmas lottery on the 22nd. Christmas Eve is big, big, big for family eating (I don't mean that literally, there's no turkey equivalent for Spaniards, no default Christmas meal, but it's certainly not family that you eat, no roast brother in law). Christmas Day is another day to eat with the family. Some Spanish families do gift giving on that day but it's still, probably, a minority of families who have Santa delivering gifts on Christmas Eve for Christmas Day. Boxing Day is nothing, well unless you're an Esteban in which case it's your saint's day - like in the song where the snow lays round about, deep and crisp and even. 

New Year's Eve is another family do with eating at home, wearing red underwear, popping twelve grapes and cava drinking all centring around midnight but, in most places, it's a family rather than a public event. That's obviously untrue if you're in the Puerta del Sol, or equivalent, at midnight but, as a general rule, the New Year is seen in at home and, after the campanadas, the older folk sip and nibble on whilst the younger people go out to do a bit of partying. 

But the heart of Christmas, the bit where everyone says "it's really about the children" is still to come. As January 5th and 6th approach the shopping frenzy heightens, the Royal Pages will be out and about collecting the Christmas lists for the Three Kings ready for the gift giving overnight on the 5th. That's the evening for the cabalgatas, the cavalcades, the town centre parades with their sweet throwing kings and elves, with camels, geese, flocks of goats (all of which are to be banned soon, or they may have already been outlawed, on animal cruelty grounds). One of the staples of the journalists in the crowd is to ask the sweet child with the high pitched voice which is their favourite King - The European one, the Asian one or the African one, all with their different coloured hair and beard (and maybe a boot polish face). Somewhere some city will get into the news for having Queens as well as Kings or some sort of politically correct twist to the event. This later Christmas is good if you're old enough to still give Christmas cards because, if you forgot any Spanish chums, handing over a card anytime up to the 5th won't be seen as being late. And the final, dying gasp of Christmas, the big doughnut shaped cakes on the 6th, the Roscón de Reyes. Oh, and of course the other big Christmas lottery del Niño, to add a certain roundness to it all.

After that, just as in the UK, there only remains the sighing on the bathroom scales and the sobbing as you check your card statement.

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And, if you're a glutton for punishment here are the links to several previous Christmas blogs 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2017a

Fat chance

As usual we won nothing. Twitter was alive with complaints about the state broadcaster's presenters talking over the numbers and full of praise for the coverage on the commercial channel la Sexta. On the telly the little girl who called the winning number was joyfully sobbing her eyes out whilst her mother, in the stalls of the same theatre, grinned all over her face. In Almansa, in the hairdresser's where the owner had handed out fractions of the ticket to her regulars, they were celebrating, in the old people's home where nearly everyone had won a woman said she was going to go and find a boyfriend and all over Spain people popped the corks on sparkling wine, toasted their good luck and danced for the TV cameras.  The usual crop of Christmas Lottery stories.

The first event of the Spanish Christmas, el Gordo, the one that hands out lots and lots of money in relatively small packages all over Spain has come and gone.

I thought I couldn't do yet another blog about the lottery until I had a look back at the December posts. All I could find are the entries from 2007  and 2006. The draw does get a mention in other years but only as a partial entry amongst talk of mince pies and polvorones. It would have been a good thing to write about but it's just after eleven in the evening now. We went out to Murcia and, to be honest, I don't feel like writing a full entry from scratch.

The 2007 post though is still pretty accurate. The boys and girls from San Ildefonso school, who sing the numbers and prizes, have different uniforms and the top prize is now 400,000€ or 323,000€ (I think) after tax but the lottery hasn't changed that much in 11 years.

I was thinking about what I'd do with my winnings just before I got up this morning. Pretty basic stuff, a new motor, a bit of driving around Spain and probably back to Cartagena. Not a sausage though, as I said. I suppose I could buy a ticket for el Niño in January. Different but similar. Still enough for a new car.