We are getting in to a very special time in the year for many people around the world. Especially for children... Christmas!

Christmas has become a season celebrated worldwide in a almost similar way regardless of language or the Country where we are... Santa Claus, the showy and glittering Christmas Tree, the presents they are globalized elements that make Christmas a celebration that goes beyond the religious tradition.

In spite of everything, in Portugal there are still some traditions that resist the typical Americanization of the season.

In Portugal, for example one of the traditions that resist is the delivery of the presents at midnight and not on the morning of December 25... so all children endure overnight until they hear the sound the twelve strikes and finaly run like crazy to the Christmas tree!

Here there was never the idea that was Santa Claus that would deliver the presents to the little ones, traditionally who gave them was the Baby Jesus.
Santa Claus eventually began to earn his place of prominence, but in more rural areas the elders still mention the "presents of Baby Jesus" and not Santa Claus.

The crib (presépio)

The crib (presépio) is indispensable the in the most traditional Portuguese Christmas (although this is of Italian origins): the crib with huge stones and moss, with their central figures, are everywhere in homes and public squares; Our Lady, St. Joseph and the Baby Jesus, the shepherds and their herds, and the Wise Men.

During the night of December 24 takes place a dinner which extends trough out the night with family and sometimes friends, we call it the "consoada", in this supper is served as a main dish, baked cod with potatoes, vegetables and is seasoned with olive oil and vinegar and (if you like the taste) chopped raw garlic and pepper on top! In the north of the country it is more usual to serve the roasted octopus instead of the cod.

After dinner and during the Eve is time to taste all the delicacies and sweets typical of the season, everything from “filhoses”, "azevias", rice pudding, french toast, “sonhos”, “bolo-rei”, scones and much more. Is served port wine (to adults), to help push down all this and anything else that you can swallow! (of curse you can drink whatever you like instead of wine)

The Christmas night extends beyond the opening of presents and when the youngest ones literally “fall sideways” the evening continues until dawn in family conversations between songs and the animation of the season!

A custom that is falling in to disuse, especially in big cities is the way to Midnight Mass (Missa do Galo). In some villages it is still customary to invite the priest responsible by it to go grab a snack at the house of the people who attended the Mass!

Another custom, this one almost forgotten, is to evoking the dead during the supper of the 24th, putting their place at the table, or even making up a doubling supper for them in another room.

On Christmas Day is eaten roasted meats and many different pastries, is a day of celebration.

The costumes, traditional or the gastronomic, change from north to south, but in the end is just another day of... Christmas!

During this month we will place, (as we have been doing) some goodies of the season!

In this time of year (autumn), a particular scent invades many of our streets and avenues of Portugal. A smell that we automatically associate with the imminent arrival of winter, and eventually with the closeness of the holiday season (Christmas)!

This scent is produced by the carts of the street vendors of roasted chestnuts (castanha assada), men and women who faithfully and for centuries and every year put themselves strategically on the street corners, or in the outputs of public transportation, invading the people that comes and goes with that familiar childhood memories! 

It is almost impossible to resist and not buy (at least sometimes) one of these paper cones, made of torn pages from old magazines and newspapers, were the vendors place mostly of the times about 12 chestnuts... that we buy for 2€ to 3€ the cone... a bit expensive for the quantity, is true but is worth every byte!

Is assumed that the chestnut is originally from Asia Minor, the Balkans and Caucasus, following the story of Western civilization for more than 100,000 years. Alongside with the pistachio, and the chestnut was an important contribution to the caloric prehistoric men who also used it in animal feeding.

The Greeks and the Romans put chestnuts inside amphorae filled with wild honey. This preserved the food and impregnated it with its taste. The Romans included the chestnut in their feasts. During the Middle Ages, the monasteries and abbeys, monks and nuns often used the nuts in their recipes. By this time, the chestnut was crushed, and became a major farinaceous in Europe.

Now a "delicacy" of the season, the chestnuts, in time gone by, constituted a nutritious food supplement, replacing the bread in his absence, when the rigors of winter and scarcity arrived.

The filigree, also less commonly spelt as filagree, and formerly written filigrann or filigrene is a delicate kind of jewellery metalwork made with tiny beads and or twisted threads, usually of gold (the privileged material) and silver, soldered together or to the surface of an object of the same metal and arranged in artistic motifs, where there are plenty hearts, crosses and other traditional themes.

The ornamental Portuguese filigree (filigrana portuguesa) is unique from

other countries and has gain an higher artistic value, recognized worldwide!

The origin of this ancient art is not determined yet, is acknowledged that the practice was known to the Chinese and Indians, as well as the classical civilizations of the Mediterranean, including Greece and Rome. The Arabs have given a remarkable vitality to this artistic form of jewelery designing the extreme softness and delicacy of the filaments. However, when they arrived to the Iberian Peninsula, the art of filigree was already known and worked by Iberian peoples.

Currently, the pieces of filigree can be found with great visibility in the North of Portugal, often used throughout the traditional wedding dress and also in the female costume of Minho's folklore dancers.

The Pilgrimage of São Bartolomeu do Mar takes place on the 24th of August at the town of Mar at the northwest Portugal, mixing the sacred and the profane, producing an unusual ritual (it happens in this date because in the popular belief, it is the date when the devil goes on the loose).
This odd tradition dates back to the sixteenth century and consists in children under seven years old going around the church with a black chicken in their arms, to pass beneath the litter and then go to the beach dive in the waves in uneven numbers, namely, in three, five, seven or nine (is called the Holy Bath "Banho Santo").
All this is made for children to stay away from what was though to be demonic effects such as gout, epilepsy and stuttering. The tradition continues every year.