So Here It Is...

Nativity Scenes [Belénes]

We went to look at a spectacular belén today. It's in a building on Puerta del Sol - I think it's the Town Hall, but I could well be wrong. Nativity scenes are immensely popular in Spain, and a lot of work and detail goes into them. Well worth standing in a queue for! This particular scene apparently has more than 400 figures in it.























There's one figure missing from this scene: the baby Jesús won't be putting in an appearance until the 25th:



We had kind of planned to make our own belén, but a shortage of time (and money!) put the mockers on that. I did start a little minimalist one...



But then it turned into a shrine to commercialism!

Christmas in Madrid, part four [navidad en Madrid, separése cuatro]

(I wrote this a week ago but forgot to post it!)...

BetterArf is in the middle of an effective four-day weekend (Thursday was a public holiday, and then she had a 'puerte' or bridging day, and now it's Saturday). So on Thursday we visited the Plaza Mayor Christmas Market. It was pretty busy. I expressed admiration for a Santa hat that I saw someone wearing, and before I knew it she had bought me one. It's a red cap with white fur edging and a red conical spiral spring with a bobble on the end - very tasteful. She also got herself a white furry halo. When we left the market and ventured into other parts of town where the Christmas spirit was a bit less evident, we were greeted by smiles and smirks from many of the grown-ups, and cries of '¡mira, Papa Noel!' from quite lot of the kiddiewinkles. Spanish kids really can pronounce that upside-down exclamation mark, by the way.


Papa Noel and his angel companion had a great time just walking all over Madrid. At the Palace of Telecommunications (head Post Office, also known as 'Our Lady of Telecommunications' because of its resemblance to quite a large cathedral) we saw quite a long queue - at least half an hour's worth, according to the signs, and went to investigate what they were queueing for. It turned out to be a very large and detailed Beléne - nativity scene. Folks were prepared to wait in line for over half an hour to get a good look, and most of them didn't have kids!


Yesterday BetterArf very kindly retrieved our trunk full of Christmas stuff from the trastero (storage room). Naturally it was at the back, at the bottom, so everything else had to be moved to get at it. But I now have my famous Christmas compilation album, and so I am a happy bunny.

Navidad en Madrid, sepárese dos [Christmas in Madrid, part two]

This is near Our Lady of Telecommunications:



El Corte Inglés pulls out a few more stops:



Angels around Puerta del Sol:



Flying carpets on Hortaleza and Fuencarral:



Yer actual Christmas tree in Sol:



Flocks of Idontknowwhats on Gran Vía:



Some cute polar bears in a shop window - don't know their names:



And what Christmas is complete without three kings and at least one camel?

Navidad en Madrid [Christmas in Madrid]

Despite being very-nearly-an-Atheist (just coming to the end of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins) I do love the idea and expression of Christmas. Having been somewhat deprived of this during the last fourteen years in the Middle East, I'm like a kid in a candy store now. When it comes to Fiestas, Madrid does not stint. Here are some pictures that I've taken around town on the last few days/nights:



This Christmas thing started a few weeks ago when I looked down into Plaza de Chueca and saw this: a couple of cherry-picker trucks and discs of coloured plexiglass.



These delightful things began working as soon as they were erected: the sun shining through them produced areas of coloured light on the ground: a white dog walking across the square could become a red or green or purple dog. Marvellous! Very gay! (If you don't live in Madrid, you probably don't know that Chueca is the gay centre of Madrid).

Wandering through town a few days ago, I happened upon this:



'Cortylandia' - El Corte Inglés enticing the parents of gazillions of kiddiewinkles to spend money they haven't got. It's magnificent. There are dozens of animatronic figures whizzing about on this, pretending to sing songs that are blasted out through a seriously big P.A. system.

Saturday last, BetterArf and I decided to meet up up at Plaza Mayor. No particular reason, just that we haven't been up there for a while. It's amazing what you can fit into this square. Right now, they've fitted in a huge Christmas Market:



You can buy Christmas trees, turf, coloured sand and bark to make your Nativity scene with, myriad plaster figures to populate it with (idolatry!), wigs, masks and all manner of weird stuff.



Sometimes you can hardly move for Living Statues in Madrid: we particularly liked this one...



An odd scene: this Santa is clearly Asian, while the guy on the left is English...make of it what you will.