Teide with snow |
Many locals and tourists alike visit Mount Teide on Christmas Day - which can be snow-capped at this time of year - that it's almost a ritual. The trip - only an hour or so's drive - is a real "Christmas experience", passing through the Canary pine forests, seeing the vast number of wild poinsettias and other natural Christmas decorations en route. You can just stay in the resort, but it seems such a shame, when you have all this natural, real Christmas ambience on the doorstep.
Wrap up in a jacket, but if you get cold, call into one of the mountain's bars for churros con chocolate ... hot chocolate into which you dip the now popular donut things. Provided you're not the day's designated driver, you might also like to try a Lumumba, which is hot chocolate and brandy. Lethal at high altitude.
Play in the snow, then just an hour or so later, you could be back on the beach, enjoying the average 22-26º C (71-79º F) year-round temperatures.
Where else in the world can you do all of this on Christmas Day?
Christmas Lunch
For most locals, Christmas Day is just a recovery day from the celebrations of Christmas Eve. Whilst you can get a traditional British-style Christmas Lunch in the resorts, don't expect there to be a Christmas menu at the few Canarian restaurants you may find open elsewhere. Many will close, except those in areas where they expect there to be any number of tourists. In homes, rabbit was the traditional fayre, a Canarian staple, or a barbecued goat kid, but the quantity of turkey being sold in supermarkets has risen sharply in recent years.
One year, before their commercial arrival, two turkeys were acquired by my neighbours, brought up in someone's mother's back yard. I'm not really keen on personally knowing my dinner in life and thought it poetic justice when the chap who had been given the job of dispatching the victim, presented his finger, all bandaged, after the unfortunate bird had put up a bit of resistance.
In the evening, watch the annual Christmas Day Concert from Santa Cruz.