Christmas trees are a newish thing here, although probably most houses have one now. The main traditional decoration is nativity scenes. Some just show the stable, but some public ones are so elaborate that they include the whole village, and it’s always a Canarian village. Obviously that’s historically inaccurate, but no more so than all the English nativity scenes where Mary and Jesus are blond.
This one was on display in Santa Cruz de la Palma last year. As you can see, it came complete with moving figures and running water. In fact the lights at the back are on a timer, and simulate sunset, night, and morning too. I didn’t include that on the video, because it took too long and I didn’t think the camera would film the low light levels anyway.
Usually a large nativity scene (belen in Spanish) includes at least one person squatting behind the bushes. If there’s one here, I missed it.
The main belen in Santa Cruz de La Palma is in Palacio Salazar, on the Calle Real. It’s usually open from 10 am to 1 pm and 5 pm to 8:30 pm until January 6th. There’s an even more famous one in Los Llanos just outside the town hall.
