Christmas in Villa Bella Estança
Happy New Year! Today we bring you a new post in this new year, and we do it with a very special text for the occasion. We will tell you anecdotes that have happened to us celebrating these dates in Villa Bella Estança.
As you know from other posts, this house has been part of our family since the 50’s. First it was my father’s aunts, and it wasn’t until 1994 that we started going there: my parents and me, and later my brother. We especially enjoyed the house during the summer months, but little by little we also started celebrating Christmas there. It’s a big, spacious house, where a lot of people are very comfortable, so it was great for big dinners and enjoying these dates.
Although we are in Catalonia, and it is not a tradition for all families to celebrate the night of December 24 and the arrival of Santa Claus, as my mother is Uruguayan, in her country this date is very important . That is why on Christmas Eve we always have the most important meeting of our family.
When the house was still full of children, between my cousins, my brother and I, the dynamic was like that: we, the little ones, had dinner around 8:30 pm, and at the end, we made the Tio’s ritual. You can learn more about that Catalan Tradition on this link. [Tió de Nadal]. The joy and the magic began at that moment. Small gifts, but of great value, came out from under the blanket that covered the trunk, and singing and biting with sticks officially began Christmas Eve at home.
Because we had the toys that El Tió de Nadal had bring to us, often colored pencils, notebooks, sketchbooks, and similar gifts, the children could easily distract while the adults quietly enjoyed their dinner. Then, when the clock struck 00:00, everyone would get up from the table and shout the “Merry Christmas”. We hugged each other and toasted and waited. Wait for whom? To Santa Claus and his gifts. The little ones started to get impatient, we went out into the garden to see if we saw any track of the sleigh, some shooting star or any clue that Santa Claus was wandering around Castelldefels. And that’s when adults got creative.
There was a year when there was a large wooden staircase leaning against the first floor balcony, and the presents were on the terrace. There were also years when one of the grandparents swore he had heard a noise and we went upstairs to see if he had already come, and indeed, we found a bed covered with presents.
But the most impressive year was when I was 10, and I already knew what Santa’s truth was, but even so, I believed for a moment that magic still existed.
It was a little past 12 at night, and we were all downstairs, chatting, playing and laughing, and suddenly a low voice with a very loud volume shouted: “Merry Christmas to everyone!!!” We were all stunned. Was it Santa Claus? I knew this couldn’t be, but my cousins and my brother, who are younger than me, were amazed. But it’s not just them. The adults also put on a face of absolute surprise. How could it be? That year we didn’t go up so fast upstairs to see if Santa had passed. We were all a little scared. Who had that voice been?
When we finally got there, we found the bed in the suite room full of gifts of all sizes, and with the names of the whole family on. It started the traditional human chain we made together so we could bring all the presents to the dining room and open them all downstairs. One more year, he had brought everything we had asked for. But I guess you’re still wondering who that voice was, right?
Well, my parents got creative.
They decided to record my father saying “Merry Christmas to everyone” and distorting his voice with a cassette, at the end of the two-hour tape, on a music device placed at the top of the stairs, with the volume at maximum above. They gave him the play when we had finished making El Tió de Nadal and they started having dinner. No one else knew about this surprise, and so the moment the voice resounded throughout the house, the whole family’s face was utterly hallucinating. In fact, not even my parents knew when it would sound exactly.
Even now, when we remember and comment on it, we get hallucinated. My grandparents confessed to us that they thought a thief had come in from the top, and so they got scared.
This anecdote is the most fun, magical and surprising we have of the Christmas days at Villa Bella Estança, but it is not the only one. We enjoyed many December 24, to assemble the tree and the nativity escene, to find El Tió de Nadal hidden among the logs of the firewood by the fisrts days of December, to decorate the door, to set the table and to open gifts, we ate delicious Galets soup, and prawns, and duck, and nougat and Neules, we released bikes and skates that Santa had given us for the promenade on the morning of the 25th, we left the shoes ready for the Twelfth Night on the night of the 5th to 6th on January, we ate grapes many New Year’s Eve nights, we watched movies to digest so much food and so good, and we played great board games while we were eating nougat or Totrell de Reis all afternoon.
This house is a Christmas present every year. Being able to enjoy it also in winter is a pleasure, and being conditioned so that every day of the year, with all the temperatures and whatever the weather is like, is one of the best things to our family.
I hope these anecdotes have made you smile and that the photos, and knowing that Villa Bella Estança is ideal at any time of the year, encourage you to book to spend some great days here.
We hope that 2021 bring us days off to reconnect with what matters most to us: family and well-being!
Happy New Year!
Alba Josa Levratto, January 3, 2021
