It’s funny, we try and follow Spanish traditions, but Christmas in an ‘English’ area means a traditional Christmas meal with all the trimmings and we love it. We will sit there with our funny hats and thoroughly enjoy ourselves. We haven’t booked it yet, the choice is horrendous.

In fact, we have more than one Christmas celebration, our first one is on 10th December, only three weeks away. It’s our slimming club, a non-working one, celebration. We haven’t lost an ounce over the last ten years.

Don't be so naive. There is plenty of illegal fox hunting still going on. Didn't the conservative party recently state they would look at re-legalising fox hunting?
Bunch of barbaric inbreds IMO.

Amazing how quickly an innocent post asking about Christmas in Spain can become a debate on the fox hunting!

That sounds great, I would love to have a traditional English Christmas but with only just the two of us and also having no idea where I would go to buy any of the food I doubt that is going to happen! Oh well, we had a very tradtional Christmas in Wales last year with friends so I guess we can cope with a picnic lunch and opening presents this year.
Where do you go for your Christmas dinner?

We don’t know yet. There are eight ‘English’ venues we can walk to, who are all advertising a traditional Christmas lunch. But we don’t know those places very well, because when we go out normally, we tend to go to Spanish places, and most of them are a bit further away.

We can also walk to five Chinese venues, and they’re advertising Christmas functions as well, a couple of them with English music, and quality stuff at that. There’s also a Hungarian place, a Swedish one, and an excellent Indian one.

We’ve never had a curry for Christmas, but why not?

We are coming in from Kazakhstan on the 20th picking up the mustang in the UK (Mama Mia in London) and driving down to the villa via Bordeaux for wine.

As its just the 2 of us for xmas we will have a day in the Villa to fill the spa and put the heating on, then off to a 5 star hotel in Benidorm for the festivities with dinner in Paneils.

New year we have two couples staying with us so we are looking to celebrate in style in Javea.

Given you strong feelings about cruelty to animals, do you think Spain was the right choice?

Oh shoosh! If you'd like to debate fox hunting then could you please not use my thread about Christmas in Spain. Thank you.

I think Madridboy was quite open recently about how North America would be his first choice, but it's harder to get in to.

Apologies to Madridboy if I've got him mixed up with someone else.

To be fair to agoreira , it was I who raised the possibility of Chulo taking his Spanish friends on Boxing Day to a hunting meet. For some reason posters have strong feelings about this, despite the fact that hunting foxes is illegal in the UK and going to the meet is entirely different to taking part in a hunt. The alternative to this so far appears to be going shopping. So perhaps we need another alternative. Is it still the case that football and rugby games take place on Boxing Day?

Just because there is bull fighting, doesn't mean I go to see it.

Sorry

100% accurate.

And I carried it on when I could have posted a new thread in Siesta Time, rant over .

I realise you may have gotten carried away but I just find it really frustrating as it seems to happen all the time and all I am after is some advice on what do for Christmas in Spain!


Thank you to everyone else for sharing your ideas and Christmas plans, it has given us some things to look into.

I think the first thing you need to decide is to what extent you value whatever is your current Xmas tradition.... ie if you LOVE your turkey/trimmings etc & Christmas wouldn't be the same (and would ruin the season) if you didn't have it, well factor it in. If, being honest, you're fed up to the back teeth with doing the same thing year in year out, then take a fresh look at the possibilities Spain might offer. Simples!

nb sorry for my first smiley ref the unmentionable off topic.... I probably started it.... though think yourself lucky it went relatively on track, some go WAAAYYY worse)

The big Christmas family dinner in Spain is actually on the evening of the 24th Dec. The meal can consist of anything as long as it is something special that isnt uually eaten. So it can be fish, beef, lamb etc. Many families buy a leg of jamon and chorizo/lomo iberico etc to last the whole christmas period while the family are round, but this is to snack on or to eat as a side dish.

Where I go for Christmas we dont exchange presents at all as it is seen as something for the children. Although maybe this isnt so usual and Spanish families tend to be going more and more crazy at Christmas now like in the UK/US.

Jan 6th is the day the children get their presents but like manamama said some children now get their presents on Dec 24th now (not the 25th!) just becuase it is earlier.

Turron is a big Christmas favourite in all its guises

You will be able to get english xmas food from either Steve Lichfields butchers in Chiclana or at Monopoly the english shop.