Ch 31 · Lesson 26Spanish · Chapter 31 · Lesson 26 · Themed review
Las fiestas
The festivals of the Spanish-speaking world, from the Day of the Dead to Fermín, and the birthdays and saints days you will be invited to.
Practise this lesson
19-word session
A quick mix of exercises - recognise, recall, type and build each word. Miss one and it comes back round until it sticks.
Worth knowing
fiesta is a party and a day off, and every town has one of each
is a party. It is also a public holiday: means tomorrow nobody is at work, not that there is a party on. Often there is both.
The calendar
| Festival | Where | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spain and much of Latin America | 6 January | The Three Kings bring presents (in Spain, Mexico and above all), and families share a ring-shaped cake | |
| Fallas | Valencia | mid-March, ending on the 19th | Huge figures, months in the making, are burnt in the street on the last night |
| Seville, in Guatemala, and almost everywhere | the week before Easter | Slow religious processions through the streets, day and night | |
| Inti Raymi | Cusco, Peru | 24 June | The Inca festival of the sun, staged again at the old fortress above the city |
| Fermín | Pamplona | 6 to 14 July | From the 7th, every morning, runners race the |
| Tomatina | Buñol, near Valencia | the last Wednesday of August | An hour-long fight with tonnes of ripe tomatoes |
| Mexico | 1 and 2 November | Families build altars with photos, |
The Día de Muertos is not sad and it is not Halloween. It is a family reunion in which some of the guests happen to be dead.
The town's own fiesta
Beyond the famous ones, almost every town and village in Spain and Latin America has its own , usually on the day of its patron . Expect days of , a in the square, fireworks, food stalls and nobody sleeping much. If you are invited, go.
Birthdays, saints and fifteen
¡ !is happy birthday. In Mexico the birthday song is- Some people, especially older Spaniards, also celebrate their
: the day of the saint they are named after. A Juan celebrates on 24 June. - In much of Latin America, a girl's fifteenth birthday is a party in its own right, the
, a first waltz with her father and the whole family, sometimes as big as a.
Navidad
runs longer than in Britain. The big family dinner is on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day, and in Spain, and parts of Latin America, the traditionally waited for the Kings on 6 January, though many children now get some on both days.