Canaries at christmas: A guide to your dreamy, warm Christmas in the Canaries

What’s A Canarian Style Christmas Like?

Mike

TOP TIPS

Many of our visitors over the Christmas period celebrate the festive season in the same way they do at home, but we’re often asked how Canarians celebrate Christmas, and it’s a little different to what you might be used to.

December 22nd

It all starts off with “El Gordo,” the massive Spanish Christmas lottery. Almost everyone will buy a ticket, or a share of a ticket,for this huge event. also known as lotería de Navidad. Various draws take place during the day, and the winning numbers are chanted on television and radio by children.

December 24th

This is known a Nochebuena in Spanish, and on Christmas eve families get together to celebrate their good fortune. Several generations will share in a fabulous and hearty meal, and the table will be laid with exquisite delicacies. The starter is almost always fresh mussels, and you’ll see bags of mussels in every supermarket during the day. The main course will often be turkey stuffed with truffles, although here in The Canaries it might be a huge fish or a seafood medley, and there will be an endless choice of sweets like nougat and chocolate truffles to finish with.

December 25th

Traditionally, December 25th is a day of quiet reflection, and getting over the excesses of the previous night’s food. But in recent years, as the islands have become more “international,” many families allow the children to open some or all of their presents on the 25th, so you’ll see them out and about enjoying their new toys.

December 26th

This is a normal working day in Spain, so everyone goes back to work. “Boxing day” doesn’t exist as part of The Canarian Christmas.

December 28th

This is “Dia de los Santos Inocentes.” It’s not a holiday, but it’s the nearest we get to April fool’s day, so watch out for pranks and look out for outlandish “News” stories!

December 31st

Here in Spain, what many call New Year’s Eve is “Nochevieja” or “Fin de Año,” so old night, or end of the year. Where Christmas eve was all about a family meal, new year’s eve is focused on partying with friends. Large groups of friends will get together to enjoy a fabulous meal, typically starting with fish and moving onto roast beef or steaks. The meal will be timed to finish at midnight, when everyone eats 12 grapes in time to the chimes of a clock, before wishing each other the best for the new year.

This can be quite disconcerting – visit Arrecife at 1100 on the 31st, and it will be like a ghost town, as everyone is still enjoying their meals! But at a few minutes past midnight, the party starts, usually with fireworks, and then carries on as the groups go from bar to bar, often accompanied by drum bands. This is one of the few times of the year when you will see Canarians dressed formally, so you’ll see plenty of suits and ballgowns, and even dinner jackets being worn.

January 5th

Everyone will be buying their “Roscon de Reyes.” These are sweet cakes filled with cream, which will be eaten for breakfast the following morning. Each cake is hand made, and contains a small figure of a King and a bean. Each person who finds a trinket in their slice has a task to perform. The one with The King is crowned King of the celebration and must wear a crown, and the one who finds the bean has to pay for next year’s Roscon party.

In the evening The Three Kings will be visiting every town, here in Lanzarote on Camels, to distribute sweets and presents to the children. This is the real heart of a Canarian Christmas.

January 6th

Three King’s day is traditionally the day children receive their Christmas presents – because it was the day the three Kings brought their gifts to Jesus. It’s another public holiday in Spain and marks the end of the celebrations before everyone returns to work on the 7th and the decorations are removed for another year.

Here’s what the weather is like in December in Lanzarote: December weather.

Christmas Celebrations in the Canaries

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Pipe lighter and canary swing: what The New York Times offered to give for Christmas in 1941

Retro

Olga Zhigulina

December 08, 2015

On December 7, 1941, the Sunday issue of The New York Times came out with a lengthy guide on Christmas presents. The modern edition invited its readers to use the retro selection if they still have not figured out how to please family and friends for the holidays.

The list of gifts compiled by The New York Times contains 324 items, numbered and sorted into groups. In the description for each, its cost and the store where such goods can be purchased are indicated, and for those who, for whatever reason, cannot come to buy it themselves or order it by phone, the publication published an order coupon on each page of the guide.

TJ has selected some great gift options.

Cellophane and red taffeta Christmas bell with three pairs of silk stockings, $5

For a “British-flavored” Christmas celebration, readers were invited to donate a raincoat for $20. From $21.50

$5 RAF Pilot Silk Scarf

Pipe Lighter $5 to $6.50

Sweater for the man who loves skiing and skiing , 8.9$5

Miniature hat in a hatbox and certificate for a real one, $5 to $10

Makeup bracelet, $2

Toy head that will grow grass instead of hair with proper care. $1.25

Stand, $11. 95

Christmas Tree Bottle, $3

Dollar Nose Hair Remover

Monopoly Board Game, $2 to $15

Canary Swing, 25 cents

Mirror with two-handed neck strap, $1.49. Double Mirror – $2.49

Box of Oranges and Grapefruits from Florida, $3.9 to $7

Musical liquor dispenser that plays a tune as the liquid is poured into the glass. $5.95

On the morning of December 7, 1941, the same day that The New York Times published its Christmas guide, Japanese planes attacked the American military base at Pearl Harbor. Hours later, President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan and the US entered World War II.

#Article #retro #Christmas #gifts_for_Christmas #The_New_York_Times

Where the “Russian canary” flies – ReadRate

Dina Rubina was given a manual for caring for canaries five years ago at one of the presentations. The writer is allergic to birds, but the gift of readers is a sacred thing. The donor, the unknown “Russian Canary Support Fund”, has now firmly entered history. “Russian Canary” began to be called a trilogy. This is a voluminous novel with many characters and at the same time a spy-detective story.

The first book of the three-volume set is called “Russian Canary. Zheltukhin. It has a bright yellow cover in a minimalist style – only the title and the name of the author. The design of the book is radically different from Rubina’s past works, as if emphasizing her special place in the work of the writer. Those of the readers who have already managed to appreciate the “Canary” see a resemblance to the “White Dove of Cordoba”, and even that is very distant. “Zheltukhin” is a book without pronounced main characters. The deaf girl Aya and the owner of an amazing voice, Leon Etinger, will turn into full-fledged characters only in the second part of the trilogy. The first one will tell the background, create the necessary atmosphere for the perception of the main – spy – plot. This is a story about two families, large clans from Odessa and Alma-Ata. They are different. Odessa is noisy and musical, Alma-Ata is secretive, with a large number of family skeletons in the closet. The main characters of this story are the birds, the canary Zheltukhin and his offspring. The Zheltukhin clan in a bizarre way connects two families.

The thing is that Zheltukhin the Second was – unlike the rest of the green canaries with an oatmeal tune – yellow and dazzlingly brilliant. He encrusted his song with a cascade of false knees. He sang with an open beak, in a manner of restrained passion, masterfully changing the tonality and strength of the sound, “playing around”: either going through the bottoms, then raising the tone, then reducing the sound to a swooning buzzer, dropping with a trembling throat to the thinnest silence. There was no case that he insulted his art with acoustic rudeness or suddenly shouted louder than was appropriate. The hunter assured that at any world competition, if he got to such a one, Zheltukhin II would definitely grab the first prize.

Sounds, music and singing are the main outline of the novel. Readers hear trills from different corners of the room of the Alma-Ata family already from the first pages. The description is thought out to the smallest detail and very convincing. It seems that the melodious voice of dozens of birds sounds in the ears. That’s where Rubina’s pamphlet about canaries came in handy. Wanting to achieve maximum believability, she shoveled a lot of applied literature on the bird theme.

Russian Canary. Zheltukhin is a family saga. The theme of family causal relationships is one of the writer’s favorites. Rubina prepares readers for the peculiarities of her main characters and suggests which of their qualities are hereditary and which are acquired. Where does the “tramp” Aya get this obsessive desire to run away from herself, and for what sins of her ancestors is she deaf? What are the prerequisites for Leon Etinger to become an employee of the special services? The promised detective-spy story will develop in the second and third books. The second part, “Russian Canary. Voice”, will go on sale at the end of March. The final part is not yet ready and will appear on the shelves in the fall.

It’s time to read the first book. With ReadRate this is especially easy. Mark yourself in the comments to the news on the website or on the social network Vkontakte and tell us why we should give Dina Rubina’s new book to you. We will give three owners of the most convincing commentary a copy each. Summing up on Friday, March 21.

All week Dina Rubina is in Moscow and holds presentations of the book at various venues:

March 17 – 19:00

New Book Store, 12 Malaya Sukharevskaya Sq.