My wife and I took a trip to Barcelona the weekend before Christmas. The main reason for the visit was to go see the festive markets, although this actually didn’t take up much of the three nights we were there.

The markets were nice enough, and importantly, different to those that we tend to get in the UK so there was some novelty in seeing different types of stalls. This being said, there was a lot of duplication in the stall types in the Barcelona Christmas Markets, with there being a lot of repetition of decorations, miniature nativity figurines and dioramas, and El Caganer figures.

The latter were something I’d not experienced before. El Caganer is roughly translated into English as “The Pooper” and is a peasant figure in traditional dress squatting down to poop (with a significant deposit made!). In Spanish Nativity scenes (which can be large dioramas depicting entire towns, rather than just the stable scene), the figure is positioned somewhere out of the way to be discovered (I expect it might be frowned upon to place him beside the manger…). While the original figure wears traditional garb, the tradition has also evolved to take account of the multitude of celebrities and mascots we have in modern times, and you can find pooping figures in the guise of almost anyone: pop stars, movie characters, videogame figures, royalty, politicians – including one stall which had a crapping Donald Trump complete with a bleeding ear from the assassination attempt! – and more. The range was certainly considerable and diverse!

You can browse a range of Caganer figurines at the official website even.

Today’s picture is of a Caganer stall at one of Barcelona’s Christmas Markets.

Something good that happened today…

I think I might rest this section of my daily blog. Not because it’s a bad idea – I fully intend to keep recognising the good things in my life – which is a good thing to do. But I’m considerate of the fact that sometimes they can maybe feel a little trivial to post about, so I think I’ll save these bits for when the “something good” is a bit more notable than my having eaten a nice pastie for lunch or something.

Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 21 December 2024