Caga Tío
As we walked through the empty streets of Girona with Ona, our private city guide, she casually pointed out a log in a window, “oh that’s Caga Tío; he is what we do for Christmas.”
Matt and I looked and saw a plain log with a happy little face painted on it, propped up by two stick arms in the front and wearing the traditional Catalan red hat with a black brim. “Wait, what is he?” we asked, utterly clueless.
I have seen Yule logs around Christmas so my immediate thought was it was a cute Spanish version of that, but let me tell you — Caga Tío is so much more! Ona gave us the scoop on this very unique Catalan tradition.
“For the month of Christmas there’s this log and we feed it scraps of sweet foods, cover it with a blanket, and on Christmas Day we beat it with sticks while we sing a song, and it poops out sweets and nougat and all our gifts under the blanket.”
At first I thought maybe she was just describing a weird tradition she does in her family, but then we started to see Caga Tío everywhere in Girona, and then in Barcelona too! It’s a real thing with a lot of history!
She told us its been a tradition in this region of Spain since the 17th century and added that, “it doesn’t really sound weird to me until I tell someone else about it, but you believe in a fat man that brings gifts in a magic sleigh with flying reindeer, so I guess we are all odd!”
She’s not wrong. Caga Tío is like Santa Clause for them. They take the presents and don’t really think about it.
The song they sing goes like this:
Caga tió, (Poop log)
tió de Nadal, (Log of Christmas)
no caguis arengades (Don't poop salted herring)
que són massa salads (They are too salty)
caga torrons (Poop turróns*)
que són més bons! (They are much better!)
*nougat
Ona also told us that they leave a small plate of foods for their pooping log every night in December because the idea is that the more sweet and good things you feed him, the fuller his belly gets and the more he will poop out gifts and sweets on Christmas Day. When they were kids they’d walk up and see how much of the plate of foods he had eaten. If they were not being good children one day, the food wouldn’t be eaten at all, which was bad if they wanted good presents.
We’ve laughed and laughed about this Caga Tío tradition, and bought one to bring home to share with our kids. He is currently sitting under the Christmas tree, although we haven’t started feeding him yet. And I need to get a blanket for him 😆. You can read more about the tradition and history of Caga Tío in this fun article by NPR, here.
I have loved learning traditions in other countries and cultures. So many times there are great similarities and things that are beautiful and fun, and it also helps me to look at our own traditions in a new light.
In our home, we don’t emphasize Santa much although my kids know all about him. It’s all the talk on the school bus and at school and such a part of American Culture. Santa finds us wherever we live and we are sure to leave out a cookie and milk for him and carrots for his reindeer. He fills our stockings with sweets, a new toothbrush, an orange and other small and fun things. One of his elves also comes to our house every December and my older children “help” as he has fun each night for the little kids to find in the morning.
Our main focus is The Light of the World, Jesus Christ. We light a candle each night Dec 1st through the 25th and talk about one of his many names found in scripture, what it means to us and how we can be more like him. Every Christmas Eve we have a nice dinner and read the story of His nativity from the scriptures in the Old and New Testament, The Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants and Pearl of Great Price, and we watch the most beautiful video of the nativity — I absolutely love the Wise Men in this. For the last eight years we have each memorized a part of “The Living Christ” to recite together, too.
We just started our candles last night! We light one and talk about the name of Christ on this advent candle holder and let it burn while we do our night scripture reading together as a family.
We also have a lot of fun on Christmas Eve and open new pajamas, and a new book and family game to read and play before going to bed that night.
In this dark time of year where the sun is only up from 9am-4pm, the Christmas lights, the candles, the music, the togetherness really do make a difference for us in feeling the light and love of Christ.
I am so grateful to know Him and feel His love. I am grateful to know the purpose of life and feel so much love all around in this holiday season.
