Spainsplain things to me: Christmas
Spanish Christmas explained in three iconic ads: El Almendro, el calvo de la lotería and the golden extravaganza of Freixenet.
DISCLAIMER: This post was written before I traveled home for Christmas but I parked it last minute as my mind was consumed with Gisèle Pelicot, or more precisely with the trial of the men who abused her without her knowledge over ten years, first and foremost her own husband Dominique Pelicot.
I wrote about the reaction of men (or lack of) to yet another episode of violence against women as it helped me process the thoughts and feelings I had been mulling over for weeks. I’m very proud of that piece as it has prompted some interesting conversations and led others to reflect on the issue more consciously.
I’m very grateful to everyone who’s read it, left a comment and shared it because this is a very important conversation for men to be involved in if we want to change things. I invite you to read it if you haven’t done so yet.
May 2025 be the year men collectively start holding themselves and others accountable for their actions against those more vulnerable. It’s about time.
I wasn’t sure whether to publish the piece you’re about to read as I felt its time had passed but then I thought it was a good way to start 2025 with a smile.
By the time you read these lines I will have hopefully reached home after a full day of travel. That’s if, fingers crossed, my personal crossing of the desert from North London to the heart of La Mancha has gone well. Let’s hope no leaves have fallen on the train tracks as I head to Gatwick.
At the time of writing, however, I still have 72 stress-and-travel-free hours ahead of me where I’m planning to make the most of a flat all to myself as my flatmate is already in Naples, stuffing herself with the delicacies of the Partenopean cuisine.
As I ponder over the question of personal hygiene and whether I should run a bath instead of taking a shower -what good is having the house to yourself if you can’t soak in the bathtub for 2 hours?-, I’ve realised how quiet the house is and how in a few days I’ll be unable to escape the background noise of TV nor the perfume and toy ads that are the backbone of the consumerism that surrounds Spanish Christmas.
In most countries that celebrate Christmas the 25th is usually the day where people exchange gifts and put an end to the festivities; that means that the annoying ads that populate every channel around these time of the year are already dwindling by the 26th.
Since Christmas in Spain is a two-week affaire and our big days run from 22nd December until 7th January - with the 22nd, the 24th evening, 25th, 26th, 28th, 31st, 1st, 5th, and 6th being usually key dates for one reason or another that I don’t have time to go into right now- that means that by the time other countries bid farewell to Christmas ads, we’re in the thick of it.
There’s still time to persuade gullible audiences that an expensive perfume to give someone on the eve of 5th January (or the morning of the 6th depending how you celebrate The Three Wise Men) is the key to fixing their troubles whatever they might be. Or a deodorant if you’re tight on money.
It hardly matters that you consider yourself above material needs this time of the year for there is no escaping Christmas ads in Spain, so sooner or later you’re bound to desperately want something you clearly don’t need and most definitely can’t afford.
But not all Christmas ads are created equal or are transactional in nature.
In Spain, three of them carry a deeper cultural meaning and are embedded into the popular history of the country, so closely intertwined with las navidades in our collective minds that obtaining the Spanish citizenship should be based on the ability to name these three staples of Spanish Christmas.
It’s all very good that you can know the 17 comunidades autónomas and the 52 provinces, the list of the Visigoth kings, and have learned to speak the four official languages of the country with native-like fluency, but if you haven’t heard of el calvo de la lotería, El Almendro, or el anuncio de Freixenet, are you really worthy of calling yourself Spanish? I don’t think so.
So what’s with these three ads, you non-Spanish person reading this newsletter ask as your curiosity grows.
Everything, I answer.
They are the alpha and omega of our raison d’être during the holidays. They are synonymous with Navidad and they capture the essence of what we love doing most in the company of our families after, in many cases, long periods of absence as work and life have taken us to other places.
In no particular order, this quality family time is spent eating like starved pigs, dreaming of getting rich overnight and drinking to console ourselves if we’re still poor after the holidays.
And after this prologue, you’re ready to fully absorb the knowledge I’m about to disclose. Hold on tight because you’re about to be let into the sancta sanctorum of popular Spanish culture and initiated into the mysteries of the Holy Trinity of Christmas Ads.
El Almendro, a turrón that nags you to come back home year after year
I’m not a big Christmas person.
I used to enjoy Christmas more as a child as we set up the belén at home -something that I was very meticulous about as I corrected the placement of every sheep, donkey, angel, fake moss, the good side of Maria, José and baby Jesus, and even the width of the aluminium foil to replicate a stream of water in December in Palestine, where I assumed the precipitations were scarce and therefore I needed to bear that into account for my belén to be realistic.
Then I grew up and we stopped setting the belén for Christmas for some reason and one of the best parts of the holidays was suddenly taken away from me.
I believe I may have been the cause we stopped doing it as I hated having to dismantle my carefully curated pre-Christian settlement, which meant the belén was usually up until mid-February, when my mum would throw every little figurine into a big box and crumple the aluminium foil into a ball to reclaim the use of the table where I had installed it. I learned at an early age that creative work is never fully appreciated nor treated with the respect it deserves.
Along with the belén, another symbol of Christmas that lingered around well past the holidays were the traditional sweets eaten this time of the year, which are many and varied and always bought in excess for fear of running out and not having anything to offer if a guest drops by.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that every Spanish home must be in possession of a couple of well-stocked trays on a visible place so that guests cannot refuse to eat something when visiting. Failing to force-feed your guests over Christmas is an unforgivable sin back home.
Among the sweets leftover after the holidays, turrón usually features prominently.
This is traditionally made of almonds, almond paste and sugar and growing up there were only two types: hard (you risked breaking a tooth) and soft (like eating processed vomit).
Nowadays, however, the options are endless and some of the flavours utterly ridiculous, to the point that I’ve come to appreciate classic hard turrón for its simplicity. When it’s a good one, the delicate taste of almonds is delicious and it has a softer crunch that doesn’t make me fear ending the holidays with a visit to the dentist to replace a molar. One of the brands that I’ve come to love is paradoxically the one I used to mock for its cheesy Christmas ads, El Almendro.
Founded in 1883 in Jijona, Alicante, El Almendro is one of the most well-established brands when it comes to turrón and in part that is thanks to the iconic song the brand commissioned in 1980 for an TV to celebrate the reunion with loved ones during the holidays.
To reinforce the lyrics, the ad included the tagline “Vuelve a case por navidad”, come back home for Christmas, while it showed people who may be away for work, studies or the military service (compulsory back then) returning home for the holidays. Emotional manipulation at the service of consumerism. Simple yet highly effective.
The song and tone of the ad struck a chord and became a holiday staple that consolidated El Almendro as a brand and produced an unexpected classic of popular culture that would transcend Christmas.
The brand had the common sense of applying the principle of ‘if ain’t broke it, don’t fix it’, and while they introduced a small change in the lyrics around the year 2000 to remove the mention to God, it has mostly followed the same formula, which has ensured their products are associated with the idea of coming back home to be with loved ones.
In fact, it’s very common to hear people in Spain say “vuelve a casa vuelve” with a tinge of irony when we would like to see someone who is away no matter the time of the year or how long they’ve been gone. We may also playfully sing to those words every time we come across a product from El Almendro as the words are etched in our brains after years of uninterrupted exposure every Christmas and very easily triggered.
El Calvo de la lotería, a mysterious bald man that brings you good luck
The name Clive Arrindell may not ring a bell to anyone in Spain, but if you refer to him as ‘el calvo de la lotería’, the bald man of the lottery ads, then everyone will immediately recognise who you are talking about.
From 1998 until 2006, this British actor born in Trinidad and Tobago became the face of Christmas as he starred in the Lottery ads for El Gordo (the fat man, literally), a extraordinary draw that takes place every year on the 22nd December and is a landmark event hosted at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
In fact, the day of the lottery marks the unofficial start of the holidays in Spain and people gather around TVs and radios, waiting for El Gordo (which stands for both the popular name this Christmas lottery is known for as well as the top prize of the draw) to be sung by the children from the San Ildefonso school and checking if their décimos, or lottery tickets, are the lucky ones.
Every broadcast channel has reporters across the country to cover the results live and the celebrations of those who find themselves with a winning décimo. It’s all quite bonkers and excessive as for most of the day the news are full of people drinking alcohol mid-morning at work to celebrate their newfound fortune and I think that’s beautiful.
With such cult status, and because people buy décimos throughout the year and many do so guided by superstition1, in 1998 the organisers of the state lottery fund decided to commission an ad to give a boost to the event on TV for the first time and it was a resounding success. To the music of Doctor Zhivago, Arrindell walked around in a stylish black and white city where he was a mysterious presence who seemed to be spreading good luck to passers by.
“Each Christmas your dreams play the lottery,” a voice off camera tells us as Arrindell turns his back to us, presumably on his way to sprinkle more good fortune somewhere else. The music, the aesthetics, the closing voice over and the hairless head of Arrindell became instantly iconic and synonymous with Christmas.
In fact, due to his bald look, Arrindell quickly was nicknamed ‘el calvo de la lotería’ and every year people eagerly expected his return to their tv sets. He became so closely associated with good fortune that during his time as the official image of the marketing campaign for Christmas, sales of décimos for El Gordo increased an average of 11%.
However, in 2006, and with still four years left in his contract, for which he reportedly earned 120,000€ per campaign (around £80,000), Arrindell was dropped by the executives of the state lottery fund, who argued he had become so popular that "El Calvo had cannibalised the advertising campaigns, making people forget what they were about."
The funny thing is that Arrindell isn’t even bald. And in fact you can check this for yourself as he makes an appearance in The Crown, where in Season 1, Episode 6 he plays a newspaper proprietor that very disappointingly has hair.
In a 2018 interview for Spanish newspaper El Mundo, he admitted he had shaved off his head for a play he was working on at the time he attended the casting for the Christmas Lottery ad. Apparently that’s what made him stand out and get the job. And eventually become so loved that when it was announced he wouldn’t be the image of the Christmas Lottery anymore we were all a bit heartbroken.
While the lottery executives tried to reproduce the excitement around their Christmas ads after sacking Arrindell, the following marketing campaigns -which included a fully animated ad in 2015, and a short alien love history directed by Alejandro Amenábar in 2017 - didn’t quite achieved the same level success, perhaps because they avoided having an iconic and remarkable main character year after year on purpose.
In a short time, ‘el calvo’ became the personification of Christmas and good luck. We may not have known his name, but Arrindell gave us something to look forward to each holiday season and to this day people still say ‘que te toque el calvo de la lotería’ when they are invoking good fortune for El Gordo.
Freixenet, las burbujas, and the appeal of a golden extravaganza
We have the turrón and we have the lottery so the only thing missing are the bubbles.
Cue to Freixenet, the iconic Catalan cava brand founded in 1914 and which has graced Spanish TV screens over Christmas since the late 70s with Hollywood stars, singers, athletes and of course the iconic burbujas (literally bubbles, but here it stands for the female dancers associated with the brand’s ads), all clad in golden and wishing us Feliz Navidad in the most improbable accents. We have to thank Freixenet for allowing us the guilty pleasure of mocking international stars for their terrible Spanish.
If El Almendro appealed us to reunite with loved ones and ‘El calvo de la lotería’ to try our luck by buying a décimo for El Gordo, Freixenet’s ads were more aspirational in tone while the product itself remained widely accessible despite being given a veneer of sophistication thanks to the glamour of a well-known face and a saturated golden decor.
In 1977 Liza Minelli wished Spanish people a merry Christmas as part of El Dorado Show (The Golden Show), a Cabaret-inspired musical preceded by clinking cava glasses full to bursting with golden liquid, what else. Singing and dancing to the iconic main theme of Cabaret, a nod to her role as Sally in the 1972 film, Minelli kickstarted a tradition of Spanish Christmas. While it lacked the refinement of future iterations, the ad subtly established the iconic golden galore associated with Freixenet.
In 1978 and 1979 the famous burbujas would make an appearance for the first time, becoming the true symbol of the brand and included in many of the ads that would follow with the stars of that year.
Initially, the girls that appear in the Christmas campaign were dancers from La Scala, a Barcelona night club, and they sneaked out to shoot the ads. Becoming a burbuja de Freixenet became a dream for many girls, not only for how iconic the ad would become over the years and the status it could give them for future jobs, but also for the close connection the brand had to Christmas in the collective Spanish mind. By appearing on the ad, they would be part of a very special moment in the lives of people.
In 2013 the Freixenet Christmas campaign was dedicated to the burbujas themselves and the brand contacted former dancers that had appeared in previous ads across the decades as a way to pay homage to their contribution in helping build a very recognisable aesthetic as well as an iconic Christmas tradition.
From 1980 celebrities would continue to take centre stage on the Freixenet ad. From Gene Kelly in 1981 dancing to Singing in the Rain to Paul Newman in 1989, Inés Sastre and Christopher Reeves in 1990, Kim Bassinger in 1993, the cast of Spanish film Belle Époque in 1994 (which won the Oscar to Best International Film that year) or Nacho Duato and Andie McDowell in 1995 in a Beauty and the Beast fantasy. The 80s and 90s were a period of serious glamour for the brand, where the pairing of a national star with a Hollywood actor worked well and helped consolidate the status of Freixenet as the holidays cava of choice.
In 1992 Antonio Banderas became the first Spanish actor to appear on the classic ad along with a Sharon Stone, catapulted to fame after the international success of Basic Instinct.
Towards the end of the 90s and most of the 00’s Freixenet abandoned the Hollywood stars -which must have not been cheap to secure- and turned to national household names. Singers, actors and athletes (in 2008 and 2009 the Spanish female synchronised swimming team were the protagonist of the ad), all wished us a Feliz Navidad without glaring pronunciation horrors, which was a bit disappointing.
However, even though the brand had turned to local talent, the Christmas campaigns were already notoriously expensive.
In 2010 Shakira, in exchange of her accepting being the image of the Christmas campaign that year, secured a 500,000 € deal for her foundation Pies Descalzos, among other things. Given that she ended up having a bit of trouble with the Spanish HMRC for tax evasion, allow me to raise an absolutely non-cynical eyebrow here.
2017 would be the last year when Freixenet Christmas ads would feature celebrities although the classic Christmas ads continue until today but are more modest in budget. Following several years of economic hardship in 2018 Freixenet sold 50,7% of the cava company to Henkel, a German holding company, which meant they were no longer the main decision makers when it came to financial administration and therefore there was no more unlimited money for household names to wish us a merry Christmas on tv for weeks. Even though we knew they didn’t mean it and it was all a transactional exchange, it felt strange not to see a celebrity, not even a minor one, in the Freixenet ads.
On that last celebrity-led campaign of 2017, Spanish actress Michelle Jenner an Argentinian actor Ricardo Darín reminded us of the importance of a good toast. The ad is a meet the parents situation, where a tie-tongue young man is asked to say a words in front of his girlfriend’s family during a dinner.
Aided by Jenner, the young man becomes an eloquent and charismatic speaker as he turns into Ricardo Darín. Moved by his words, everyone congratulates him and accepts him as a new member of the family with open arms.
This is the most batshit crazy ad Freixenet has done in its history (yes, even more than the one from 2001 with Penélope Cruz) because no average Spanish family is that quiet and composed over a Christmas dinner, or interested in inviting a stranger -much less so in him interrupting their meal- or least of all has such a spacious and uncluttered dining room that looks straight out of the lates IKEA catalogue.
Far more realistic would have been to show a family being extremely loud and chaotic, with someone asking for the plate of jamón to be passed around, another person swearing for the tenth time never to buy a décimo for El Gordo again next year because the lottery is a scam anyway -but quietly whispering if anyone has got any décimos for El Niño on the 6th January-, someone else inspecting the sweets tray, which includes mini turrón bites, while everyone who momentarily leaves the room and re-enters is jokingly greeted with a ‘vuelve a casa vuelve por Navidad.’
BONUS: The true iconic Christmas video in Spain
Dear readers,
I’ve imparted upon you the kind of wisdom that ensures that, should you spend your Christmas (as in the two weeks we consider Christmas) in Spain in the company of natives of my homeland, you would be able to astonish them with your knowledge of popular culture, the kind that Duolingo, fancy language courses abroad or AI can’t teach you. Use it responsibly.
We could leave it here and you would be absolutely fine to fend for yourself at a raucous Christmas’ Eve dinner while trying to snatch the last slice of jamón from the quick fingers of my fellow countrymen.
But you see, I’ve always been a perfectionist and after we’ve come such a long way I’d feel terrible if I didn’t share with you the modern Christmas classic we didn’t know we needed but which we deserve as a country as it’s far more realistic and representative of our true selves than the highly stylised ads from El Almendro, el calvo de la lotería or Freixenet.
In fact, despite the efforts of its famous protagonist and his even more famous employer -which removed the original video from its main Youtube channel after it became an instant viral sensation in 2012- to bury the past and move on, this the the video that every Christmas returns from the depths of the internet to our WhatsApp groups, text messages, emails, and in-person conversations to wish each other a happy Christmas and New Year.
This is our fourth horseman of the Christmas videos apocalypse.
Morri Crisma and Japy Niu Yiar evriwan!
Abroad is an independent publication about London, living in between cultures, languages, books, music, films, creativity, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.
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To understand the madness of El Gordo, a former boss once shared her father had won this Christmas lottery twice, which is very unusual regardless of the kind of draw. The first time it wasn’t a lot of money, but the second it was more than enough to buy their family home near Barcelona. This was in the mid 70s so while the money may not have been excessive by today’s inflation and cost of living it went a long way in providing material security.
When my former boss shared this news, we got curious at work and asked her some questions. She told us that apparently her father usually got flashes of numbers in the most random situations, such as while shaving or driving past a place, and that he would take that as a sign and would immediately proceed to locate where in Spain that number was being sold and bought it just in case.
Influenced by that, my coworkers and I bought décimos from a number her parent had had a vision on while having breakfast because, and I quote her, “he had to stop eating because he could only see numbers on the plate and feared choking”. I hope you appreciate how surreal this whole thing was because we all did back in the day -my boss included, she couldn’t stop laughing while telling us her father’s epiphany- but we all went ahead with it as if high on ayahuasca.
I shared the number and the story with my mum, who mobilised everyone she knew and embarked into a little odyssey with a few of her friends to travel to different cities in Spain to buy a couple of décimos of that number (not all numbers are sold in every city). She also bought some for herself, my sister and me.
The day of the Lottery, 22nd December, I was still working in London when I received a call. It was my boss, who was back home in Spain, to tell me her father had won the lottery again (50,000 €) but not with the number he had shared with us. He would go on to win a fourth time a few years later (a lot less money, but still on the five digits - what are the odds!).
Meanwhile my mum is still bitter he didn’t share more numbers with everyone to spread a bit his luck and every Christmas talks about this décimogate and the how she moved heaven and earth to get the number my boss’ father predicted all those years ago, which she still remembers. I, on the other hand, put an end to the lottery madness then and there. It was in fact the only time I’ve ever bought a décimo.
What a great account of what Spanish culture means during las navidades. I knew about the 3 of course, but I didn't know so many of the old stories. And all this celebrity insight about those Freixenet ads! 😱 What a delight!
Freely admit I once watched a documentary series about Sergio Ramos (I'd become fascinated by football). He seems quite...extra, doesn't he?