Turrón and mincemeat

In Spain the traditional Christmas sweet is turrón. It is made of almonds and honey among other things. There are two basic traditional varieties: hard and soft. I prefer hard turrón, but soft can be good too. You can buy it in the supermarket in packets ranging in price from two to eight euros. There's a make called "1880" which prides itself on being "the most expensive turrón in the world". Actually, I think the handmade turrones made in small local confectioners probably cost more.
In Jaca there are a number of very reputed confectioners, which produce turrones at Christmas, exquisitely decorated chocolate eggs at Easter, "Huesos de Santo" (saints' bones) for All Saints', not forgetting St Joseph's woodshavings and Epiphany rings. Although we see Father Christmas portrayed in many places here, traditionally children don't receive their presents from him but from the three kings, who visit on Epiphany, so on the evening of 5th January children line the streets to watch them arrive; on horseback, or possibly camels depending whereabouts in this big country, which stretches from the Mediterranean to the Cantabrian to the Atlantic and the African coast of the Canary Islands. I think they even ski by torchlight down the slopes in Formigal, a big ski resort in the neighbouring Tena valley.
When they go to bed, children leave glasses of wine and food for the kings, water for the camels, and I think, cleaned shoes. In the morning they will find their gifts, or if they've been bad, a lump of coal. (Shops sell lumps of coal made out of sugar.)
There's a family meal that day, and the dessert will be a special Kings' cake or Epiphany ring. Not, in my opinion the most exciting cake, but one which has a hidden token. In my English family, we had Christmas pudding in which my mother had hidden a silver sixpence.

Spanish confectioneries apart, I've found very few people who don't enjoy English mincepies when I make them. They take quite a bit of preparation, because out of necessity, I make the mincemeat- from ingredients bought here. It's very satisfying, but you have to make it at least two weeks befor you need it, so you have to get the timing right. However, there's always so much turrón around at Christmas that it's really not necessary to offer mincepies then, and since people don't associate them with Christmas, you can make them any other time and they're greatly appreciated.

Snowfall

On Monday, the last day of November, it started snowing around midday. It carried on snowing. My goodness, how it snowed! Tuesday morning, we woke up to find the biggest snowfall in many years. Cars were buried in 40 cm of fluffy white snow. The roads and pavements were thickly covered. Lots of branches broke under the weight. Everything was very pretty and extremely complicated.It took us half an hour to dig the wheels of the car out enough to be able to move it! There was a policeman stopping traffic going up to the hospital; he said the car park was a metre-deep in snow.If driving was difficult, walking wasn't easy either-the pavements were thigh-deep and we had to go on the road, keeping a lookout for skating cars and lorries.
By the evening things were getting better, and by the next day the pavements were cleared. Now there are only dirty piles of cleared snow and broken branches everywhere. The lovely snowmen which had appeared even in the city streets have all gone.
The place is crammed with tourists for the first weekend of the ski season; this year there'll be skiing right from the beginning of December.

 This is one of the nicest snowmen I've seen. His buttons are green leaves and he carries a broken twig as a trident. He is guarding the Ciudadela.