In Bilbao Biscay, we love spending Christmas in the company of our friends and family, having lunch together, merging tradition with innovation, singing songs and carols, and taking part in the Christmas activities organised all over the region. We enjoy visiting the spectacular nativity scenes that are set up in our towns and cities, getting decorations and crafts at Christmas markets, writing letters to Olentzero–our particular Santa–, and walking under the Christmas lights. This is the time of the year when families and friends get together to enjoy the best of our gastronomy, our rural traditions, and the Christmas spirit that permeates every corner of Bilbao Biscay.

The beginning of the Christmas season in Bilbao Biscay is marked by the celebration of farmers’ markets. Many towns welcome these rural markets whose stalls are replete with the delicacies produced in our characteristic farmhouses called baserris–vegetables, fruit, honey, sweets, cheese, or farm animals–, essential ingredients to prepare our tasty Christmas dishes. Santo Tomás is, without the slightest doubt, the most important fair in Biscay. Although the festivity is celebrated in several towns in the region every 21st December, it acquires a special dimension in Bilbao. Thousands of people gather at Plaza Nueva in Casco Viejo and at Paseo del Arenal each year to spend a day shopping for Christmas food.

Over time, Santo Tomás has turned into a way to celebrate Christmas with friends just a few days in advance. At present, the market stalls are alive with the sound of typical instruments like ‘txistus’ and ‘tamboriles’, and other food and drinks are also served at them. However, the undisputed king of the festival is the ‘talo’–a kind of tortilla made of corn, water and salt, eaten with chorizo, chistorra, or blood sausage. Paired with cider or txakoli, it is the perfect snack for anyone who wants to make the most of the market and its joyful atmosphere.

Once you have filled your shopping bags with top-quality, locally grown ingredients, it is time for you to start preparing your Christmas dinner. Traditionally, the menu consisted of boiled collard greens with olive oil, bream or salt cod (depending on whether you lived on the coast or not), meat, and cold cuts made on San Martín’s Day. For dessert, most people used to have roasted chestnuts and intxaursaltsa–walnut cream, and holiday meals were habitually accompanied with txakoli wine produced in the neighbouring vineyards. Nowadays, our Christmas menus are more extensive, but they keep the essence of our traditional gastronomy. They include fish and other seafood brought from our fishing ports, recipes that have passed down from generation to generation–having a different touch in every household–, new dishes inspired by those prepared in the most avant-garde restaurants in Biscay, and traditional desserts baked in best bakeries of the region.

Meeting people to sing songs together is another deep-rooted tradition in Bilbao Biscay. We do it any time of the year, but especially at Christmas, when the streets are filled with choirs singing traditional carols such as Hator Hator or Din Dan Don. The tradition of the ‘Marijesiak’, groups of people who perform songs about the birth of Jesus for nine consecutive nights before Christmas Day, is still preserved in places like Gernika, the towns around the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve, Arratia, or Zeberio. The singing usually takes place in the early hours in churches and chapels, and the verses are dedicated to a different aspect of the Nativity each day. To end this singular singing pilgrimage, after the last recital on Christmas morning, people get together to have pintxos and wine.

As the youngest ones already know, the main protagonist in our Christmas songs cannot be other than Olentzero. The carols that talk about this friendly coal miner, who brings happiness to all the homes in Bilbao Biscay year after year, can be heard everywhere on the days before December 25th, especially in the cheerful parades that fill the streets of all the towns and cities in the region. Olentzero lives in a ‘baserri’ made of stone and oak beams called Landetxo Goikoa in Mungia, the oldest preserved farmhouse in Biscay. Izenaduba Basoa is also magical for being the place where the most popular characters from our mythology dwell: the goddess Mari, Galtzagorri, Basajaun, or Lamia are just a few of them. Plenty of amazing activities are always available for those who are looking for a fun experience among Biscayan myths and legends.

Some ‘baserris’ in rural Biscay still keep alive the pre-Christian tradition of burning a large log–either from an oak, a holm oak or a beech tree–at home on Christmas Eve. Families sit around the fire as a remainder of those times when people celebrated the winter solstice by letting the sunlight in the house to preserve it during the longest night of the year. The ashes of this special fire are kept in the fireplace as a symbol of protection for the ‘baserri’ and its occupants, including animals and crops. These ashes are sometimes even used the following year to start a new fire.

Another Christmas tradition in Biscay is watching the sun rise on New Year’s Day from the summit of Mount Gorbeia, the highest point in the whole region.  Following one of the many trails that go across Gorbeia Natural Park, each January 1, Biscayan hikers have the opportunity to admire one of the most impressive views of the region from the Gorbeia Cross, at a height of 1,481 metres.

To conclude, no-one should miss the Christmas atmosphere that reigns at Arenal and Casco Viejo in these days. The first things that call our attention as we get near the area are an ice-rink and a huge ice slide. You can find them at Muelle del Arenal and Muelle de Ripa respectively. With a surface of 800 square metres, this eco-friendly ice-rink is the perfect place to test our ice-skating skills. As for the slide, the little ones can sledge down one of its 6 lanes and have an authentic Christmas experience. The Bilbao Gabonak zone is open to the public from November 25 to January 5. And after all this fun, there is no better plan than visiting the Christmas handicraft market, situated on the other bank of the Estuary, or wondering the lively streets of Casco Viejo.