Mallorca
Christmas of yore
The reason for celebrating the 25th of December is the same: the birth of Jesus Christ. The way we commemorate this event, on Mallorca, too, has not changed much over the centuries, although it does not have the repercussions of yore.
For the first few centuries of our times, Christians did not celebrate Christmas for the simple reason that the date of Jesus’ birth was unknown (the date of his death was known, however, during the Jewish Passover). It was not until the 4th century AD that December 25th was established as his date of birth at the instance of Pope Julius I. The date was not chosen randomly, and indeed is steeped in symbolism, as the Romans held the festivals in honour of the God Saturn (curiously enough, represented by a newborn baby) from 17th to 24th December, designating the 25th as the day of the birth of the “Invincible Sun”. This festival, highly respected by the Romans, meant that not even the slaves of the Empire worked on that day.
In Mallorca, as the present-day Chronicler of the City, Bartomeu Bestard, tells in a book, we must assume that Christmas was celebrated as early as in the 4th century AD, as the island was inhabited by Christians, although it was after the year 1229, when King Jaime I took over the island, that the tradition was firmly established.
On 24th December, in Palma and the villages around the island, people would pay each other visits to wish each other a happy Christmas and give gifts. Afterwards, families would dine together before going to church to listen to the chant of the Sybil, or Sibil.la, a Mallorcan interpretation announcing the arrival of the Antichrist and the end of the world. The following day, Christmas Day, was first and foremost a culinary event, with plenty of traditional soup and bollit, homemade potted meats, turkey, Christmas sweet (turrón), sweet wine, etc. Everyone used to eat at home on that day, “although newlyweds would go to eat at the house of either his or her parents,” tells Miquel Font. Afterwards, of course, they all went to mass together.
By this time one of the most popular Christmas traditions was already the displaying of nativity scenes. This tradition goes back to when Saint Francis of Assisi held mass inside a cave in the town of Greccio, Italy, in 1223, with a real bull and ass standing on either side of a stone image of the Baby Jesus. Ever since then all the Franciscan friars around Europe copied their founder, placing images of the nativity scene in their churches.
On Mallorca it so happens that on 31st December, as well as seeing off the old year, we hold the [...]
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