Christmas In Lanzarote

People mainly come over to Lanzarote for Christmas to avoid the UK hussle and bussle and commercialised hype. Christmas is still celebrated in Lanzarote but at a much slower pace.

In England, Christmas time would be spent huddled in front of the fire with family and friends, eating, drinking and watching the TV. If you choose to spend christmas however in Lanzarote, you would be swapping the cold winter snap for beautiful warm and sunny days around the swimming pool or coastline as generally, the weather in Lanzarote would be around 20-25 degrees.

Christmas day is not celebrated in Lanzarote in the same way as it would be in the UK. The Christmas season in Lanzarote officially begins on the December 8th which is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Christmas Eve is known as Nochebuena (The Good Night). As in most Catholic countries Christmas Eve – Nochebuena - is an important family occasion, which means that many bars and restaurants on the island close earlier than usual so that employees can enjoy time with their family and maybe even attend midnight mass or 'Misa del Gallo'. December 25th however is a much more low-key affair than in the UK as the main focal point of a Spanish Christmas is El Dia De Los Reyes when the children around Lanzarote would receive their gifts on the feast of the Epiphany which is on the 6th January. The reason for this is that the three Kings arrived in Bethlehem to deliver presents to baby Jesus and children in Spain think of the Three Kings or Wise Men as the gift bearers.

On the evening of the 6th January, shoes would be filled with straw or barley for the tired camels of Lanzarote that carry riders through the busy night. By the morning, the camel food would be gone and in place of the straw would be presents.

Most families would have a manger in their home like in churches or cathedrals and during the weeks before xmas, families would dance and sing around it in celebration of the festive period. The Spanish also especially honor the cow at Christmas because it is thought that when Mary gave birth to Jesus, the cow in the stable breathed on the baby to keep him warm.

It may come as a surprise to people to find out that the Christmas period in Lanzarote is one of the busiest times for some of the resorts. Playa Blanca receives around the same, if not more tourists in winter as it would at the height of summer.

Some of the attractions to visit over the Christmas period would be a Fire Works display (largest held in Puerto Del Carmen), the Three Kings and many Nativity Scenes. For the Epiphany, the event is marked with a major camel-back procession through the capital city of Arrecife on the evening of January 5th as the Three Kings dispense sweets to children in the streets, a celebration that is then repeated later in the evening in other towns and villages across the island of Lanzarote of which Yaiza is a firm favorite. The narrow streets of Yaiza, are lined with families and children. After the Kings procession, one by one, the children line up near a big stage and await for the three kings to call them up individually to receive a gift. The favorite King is usually Balthazar who rides a donkey and is the one believed to leave the gifts.

In between these two very different Christmas Days there is also the small matter of New Year's Eve, which is a major celebration marked with impressive fireworks displays across the island. The biggest and best takes place in the main tourist resort of Puerto del Carmen where a barrage of 'fuegos articificales' – artificial fire as fireworks are called in Spain – welcomes in the coming year.

Christmas customs in the Canaries bear plenty of similarities to the UK. But there are also numerous cultural differences which give the festive season in Lanzarote its own unique identity.