Merry Christmas! Egu Berri On! I hope everyone has a great holiday break however you celebrate. Today, I wanted to fill your virtual stocking with a bevy of Basque Facts about Christmas. May these little nuggets inspire you or at least give you some new perspective on the Basque culture, history, and people and whet your appetite for more in 2025!

• Zorionak! That unique and charming greeting for the Christmas season and more really means “good birds to you.”
• The Feria of Santo Tómas is a huge festival that opens the Christmas season in Donostia. A large market that brings together rural wares and urban shopping, the Feria has become a signature event of the season in Donostia and beyond.
• On the actual day of Christmas, it isn’t Santa that brings gifts to Basque children, but Olentzero and his companion Mari Domingi. The last of the Jentilak, the giants that created the great stone features that dot the Basque landscape, Olentzero is now a jolly coal worker that heralds the coming of Christmas.
• Another Christmas tradition is the burning of the Yule log, in Basque the Gabonzuzi. Providing special protections for the house throughout the coming year, burning the Gabonzuzi was an important part of Christmas activities.
• It was December, 1944, and one of the last major battles of World War II was about to happen, as the Germans made one of their last counteroffensives of the war. The Battle of the Bulge involved a number of Basque-Americans who went through hell that Christmas.
• One Christmas, I got to watch dad make one of his wonderful hams. I fell in love with jamón serrano when I first visited the Basque Country and dad’s were just as good as anything I tried there. His “recipe” was pretty simple. Some day I may have to give it a try – my brother has done a great job making his own hams.
• And, the day after Christmas, my great-uncle Joe turns 100! Zorionak Uncle Tio!

A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.

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