Christmas has had diverse customs and traditions, among which the nativity scenes, carols and nougat stand out. In Navarre we can trace about it, always bearing in mind that, as a festival, it treasures a plurality of constants around fun and entertainment: family gatherings, festivities in the streets and squares, breaking of the social order with the lifting of certain vetoes, wastefulness, dances, songs and excesses in food and drink. Like all festivities, Christmas celebrations have also been a dynamic phenomenon, with traditions that are maintained, others that are lost, and even others that reappear or are created over the years.

On this occasion, we will discuss some aspects of the three components mentioned above: nativity scenes, nougat and Christmas carols. Three elements of different origins, but which fit perfectly into the festive celebrations of the Christmas period with a singular harmony.

Three perceptions of the Nativity scene: Caro Baroja, Iribarren and Uranga

Well into the last century and when the historicist nativity scenes were gaining ground over the popular and traditional ones, three stories by Julio Caro Baroja, José María Iribarren and José Javier Uranga recorded their opinions and experiences about the sets they had seen in their childhood, before the workshops of Olot flooded the market of figures with their historicist models with landscapes and orientalizing figures, together with the studied perspectives of their dioramas.

Julio Caro Baroja included his text in the book Memorias familiares, first published in 1972, evoking the market of the place de la Santa Cruz in Madrid back in the twenties, with the stalls of stalls, figures and Christmas instruments. He distinguishes the origins of the figures, with a majority from Murcia and other fine ones from Granada, heirs of the nineteenth-century Andalusian muds, "from the most atarugadas and coarse, painted with bright colors, to the most delicate, there was also a significant difference in price". In addition to the characters of the Gospels, he lists "the chestnut seller, the woman who spins with her isolated cat, the baker, the old woman with the zambomba, the solitary shepherd, or the groups: the Holy Family in front of the inn, the miller, the Annunciation to the shepherds, the man with his yoke. All the old peasant society of the South could be found represented in figures and groups, independently of the physical training or agreement to a canon of the Christmas Nativity". He admits that it is in these latter types that he took delight: "But to me, I was more interested than the central figures, than the Magi or Herod with his soldiers (reminiscent of the "armaos" of the Holy Week Processions of the South), in the humble characters that in the southern, Catholic society of Italy, Spain, Provence or South Germany, I had imagined that they had gone to pay homage to the child-God, at one time. Nor was I interested in them because I thought they were humble or poor in spirit, but because it amused me to think of their daily chores, of their yokes, wells, fountains with pitchers and donkeys with bucklers, of their spinning gear or other tasks. He played long hours adjusting his life. My uncle Pío collaborated in this, giving interpretation to the characters created by the popular image makers".

With this experience staff ends the story: "You will understand, then, the joy and illusion that I had, at nine and ten years old, when my grandmother and my father gave me a very respectable amount of pesetas in silver according to my account and accompanied and even advised by Julia I went up Main Street, to see nativity scenes, and arrived at the Santa Cruz market, to fill in, to expand my collection of figures. The groups were what most tempted me, and so I came to have many that served me as toys during the winter, although my grandmother used to want me to close the cycle, according to the canonical dates and to keep the figurines in protocol".

José María Iribarren wrote in this same newspaper a article on December 26, 1930 with the same setting in Madrid's place de la Santa Cruz, "invaded by sheds, in a skeleton of boards, with the stands full of figurines". He admits that, as a child, he stood at the stalls and describes sellers and buyers, generally mothers with their children, with nice dialogues between both parties.

From his text we copy the following regarding instruments and figures: "I see stalls full of tambourines like huge parchment moons. Others in which a string hangs a string of bright, shining, raging stars. But the most curious are the groups of figurines. There are villagers sprawled on the backs of their donkeys, seriously playing a golden violin. And strange fishermen raising their fishing rod over a shallow and miserable silver puddle. I was shocked to see some figures, or rather, they were half-figures of men in nightgowns with red nightcaps like barretinas. From their chests sprouts a twisted wire from a candle. And what are these men in their nightgowns for, I asked the old woman... "They are - she told me - to put them in a window of the inn when the Virgin and St. Joseph call". I was very amused to see these "bad men" in the nativity scene. But it is in the figures of the Kings where the rudeness shines, the primitive simplicity of the craftsman. Some of them look like Iberian idols. Some are so stylized in their coarseness that the head and chest of their stubby horses are confused. I have seen some Kings whose heads were triangular, like sturdy fleurs-de-lis rabidly gilded. A lady approached one of these stalls, "What are these worth?" she said, pointing to the row of Magi with their camels of merchandise. The vendor told her: "The whole Parada is worth eight pesetas".

Finally José Javier Uranga, also from his section in this newspaper wrote on December 14, 1961, a delicate article graduate "Figuricas y belenes", noting that the Christmas holidays were the time of the shop window and nativity scenes. Those were times when plastic replaced clay and of nativity scenes called artistic or perspective and he notes, to conclude: "I don't know why, I don't like those artistic nativity scenes, set in the geographical landscape of Palestine, without a green spot where to rest the eyes. I prefer those of yesteryear, humid and soft like the Baztan, with lots of moss and cork and flour ranges for the snow and sawdust for the roads and broken mirrors for the lagoons and silver paper for the rivers. Nativity scenes with removable kings, horribly clubbed when their day came and we put them to adore the Newborn; with mutilated shepherds and a hunter with a blunderbuss stalking pigeons in a forest of dry pots; with beaded stars and cellophane bonfires. A touchable and movable nativity scene, in which the figures changed places and the kings advanced slowly on the burlap of the background. We are already in the days of preparing the crib. Do not mind that the house is stained, that the women protest; even if you have no room, with little money put up the crib. With him and with him you will spend the best days of the year. Have no doubt about it".

Nougat

Fernando Serrano in his outstanding programs of study provides very interesting data . Thus, he provides prices at the beginning of the 17th century on the prices in Pamplona of white nougat and Alicante nougat, which was a little more expensive, also documenting the red nougat made with lighter honeys than black and marzipan. It also reports the complaint and lawsuit in which the confectioner of Viana Martín de Zugarrondo was involved, for not having the nougat supplies for the supply of Viana in 1687, something he was obliged to do particularly for Christmas, at a time when the consumption of nougat had already become popular. The aforementioned confectioner was fined twice "for not having nougat for Christmas Day, being his obligation from his official document, despite his complaints, in which he recognizes that for more than ten years he has not used to make them, because he is a very old man and suffers from some ailments and to make such nougat he needs a lot of work".

In the ordinances that were made in 1819 at the request of the Cortes de Navarra for the confectioners, which never came into force, the preparation of nougat is dealt with, with all subject of details: "That all kinds of nougat, both white and red, must be worked; The white one with the whitest honey that can be used, cleaning the pine nuts of their houses and rancid, toasting them very well and crushing them and passing it through a sieve, adding the whites of fresh eggs corresponding to the shell, giving it the necessary point, reducing it to cakes or bars as he sees fit, and in this way all the other almond or hazelnut shells that are worked, with the exception of marzipan, which should be worked by giving the clarified sugar to the almonds well cleaned, dried and chopped. Giving it the corresponding egg whites and adding the chopped candy or grajea and giving it the corresponding point. The honey is thrown to the perol where toasting them with the same honey giving them the necessary point that to the official seems before and after throwing the fruit and having foreseen the table it escudille it and it is reduced to cakes or bars".

In 1818 the Libro de Confitura of the Olite confectioner Elías Gómez was published by R. Ciérbide, J. Corcín and F. Serrano. It contains recipes for making, among others, marzipan, nougat Alagón, orange, lemon, granda or cinnamon, guirlache, Portugal, Indian, snow, Alicante, Jijona ... etc..

The cloistered nuns also had and still have their own recipes, some of them collected in handwritten copies. The Christmas menus from the 18th century onwards include nougat and marzipan from the conventual kitchen.

Christmas carols: from classical to popular music

The nativity scene in homes, convents and churches generated a whole explosion of popular soul in literature and music, of unequal value. From polyphonic carols to Ave Marias pastorelas in the familiar six-by-eight time signature, a long repertoire of auroras, popular carols and Christmas carols can still be traced among the elderly. Some of the surviving poetry is reminiscent of the ancient texts of the Oficium Pastorum. Of particular interest are also the versifications of the auroras of the villages that have preserved the secular lyrics and melodies.

The cathedral of Pamplona required its chapel master at the end of the 18th century to compose 36 carols, of which seven were for Christmas. Since 1730 the lyrics were supervised to avoid that "there was something not corresponding to the gravity of the Divine Offices". In the collegiate church of Tudela, the chapel master was also obliged to compose carols for Christmas night. Recently, we have been able to document that in some cloistered convents, such as the Benedictine nuns of Estella, carol compositions were requested from masters of the city or Alfaro in the second third of the 18th century. In the Comendadoras de Puente la Reina, it was forbidden in 1762 that "it is never allowed that during the time of Easter of Nativity and Epiphany, to sing after Vespers a carol called "de chanza". With this last expression were known especially festive, funny and even burlesque compositions. Some Christmas carols bore this subtitle "de chanza", as in the Jácara de Fandanguillo (c. 1733) by Juan Francés de Iribarren from San Juan. In the cathedral of Valencia a controversy arose around the jocular, carnivalesque and authentic buffoonery character of a Christmas carol in 1759.

Some parish music archives preserve scores of carols, mainly from the second half of the 19th century, some with arrangements to be performed on different instruments. Some belong to local masters, others are copies of the successful ones by Mariano García Zalba and other organists and musicians from Pamplona Cathedral. The 20th century does not seem to have been so creative, as it was generally a time when printed scores by famous composers were performed.

The pastoral instruments, zambombas, huge tambourines adorned with bells, bells, irrillos, tambourines and tambourines of the 18th and 19th centuries bear witness to the religious and anthropological richness of the Christmas festivities. The lyrics of many of the melodies sung in the streets and squares often featured people and popular types from the villages.