{"id":7411,"date":"2024-12-22T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=7411"},"modified":"2024-12-21T16:30:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T16:30:25","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-a-stocking-full-of-christmas-themed-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2024\/12\/22\/basque-fact-of-the-week-a-stocking-full-of-christmas-themed-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: A Stocking Full of Christmas Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background\">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!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"239\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/eguberri-01-1-300x239.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2266\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/eguberri-01-1-300x239.png 300w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/eguberri-01-1-1024x814.png 1024w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/eguberri-01-1-768x611.png 768w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/eguberri-01-1-1536x1221.png 1536w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/eguberri-01-1-2048x1628.png 2048w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/eguberri-01-1-1200x954.png 1200w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/eguberri-01-1-1980x1574.png 1980w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Egu Berri eta Urte Berri On!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2022\/12\/25\/basque-fact-of-the-week-good-birds-to-you\/\">Zorionak<\/a>! That unique and charming greeting for the Christmas season and more really means &#8220;good birds to you.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2023\/12\/24\/basque-fact-of-the-week-the-feria-of-santo-tomas\/\">Feria of Santo T\u00f3mas<\/a> 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.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>On the actual day of Christmas, it isn&#8217;t Santa that brings gifts to Basque children, but <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2019\/12\/22\/basque-fact-of-the-week-olentzero-the-basque-santa-claus\/\">Olentzero<\/a> and his companion <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2021\/12\/19\/basque-fact-of-the-week-mari-domingi-olentzeros-companion\/\">Mari Domingi<\/a>. The last of the <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2019\/04\/14\/basque-fact-of-the-week-in-basque-mythology-before-humans-there-was-a-race-of-giants\/\">Jentilak<\/a>, 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.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Another Christmas tradition is the burning of the Yule log, in Basque the <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2020\/12\/20\/basque-fact-of-the-week-gabonzuzi-the-basque-yule-log\/\">Gabonzuzi<\/a>. Providing special protections for the house throughout the coming year, burning the Gabonzuzi was an important part of Christmas activities.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2021\/08\/02\/fighting-basques-basques-in-the-last-christmas-of-the-war-the-battle-of-the-bulge\/\">Battle of the Bulge<\/a> involved a number of Basque-Americans who went through hell that Christmas.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One Christmas, I got to watch dad make one of his wonderful <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2012\/01\/02\/christmas-ham-basque-style\/\">hams<\/a>. I fell in love with jam\u00f3n serrano when I first visited the Basque Country and dad&#8217;s were just as good as anything I tried there. His &#8220;recipe&#8221; was pretty simple. Some day I may have to give it a try &#8211; my brother has done a great job making his own hams.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And, the day after Christmas, my <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2023\/10\/01\/basque-fact-of-the-week-my-uncle-tio-joe\/\">great-uncle Joe <\/a>turns 100! Zorionak Uncle Tio!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background\">A full list of all of Buber&#8217;s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/basque-fact-of-the-week-archive\/\">Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Primary sources: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[836,880,1958],"tags":[2562,649,236,2357,533,3131,742,3871,4050,3563],"class_list":["post-7411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-fiestas","category-fighting-basques","tag-battle-of-the-bulge","tag-christmas","tag-fighting-basques","tag-gabonzuzi","tag-jamon","tag-mari-domingi","tag-olentzero","tag-santo-tomas","tag-tio-joe","tag-zorionak"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/eguberri-01-1.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1Vx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7411"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7415,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411\/revisions\/7415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}