DESTINATIONS CHRISTMAS IN TENERIFE | FESTIVE BREAKS 5 1
December 28 marks Holy Innocents’ Day, which is a little like April Fool’s Day. Locals play pranks, including sticking a paper doll to another person’s back – ideally without them noticing.
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TOP: Joia El Mirador by Iberostar ABOVE: La Caleta PICTURE: Shutterstock/Rytis Media
less populated part of the shore. I passed bikini-clad locals meditating and practising yoga on stony beaches to arrive, 20 minutes later, at the charming fishing village of La Caleta. Here, the laid-back atmosphere and pretty cottages, waterfront bars and cafes invite visitors to linger at one of the quaint little restaurants serving fresh seafood brought up from the craggy rocks below.
If clients stay long enough for La Caleta’s 500-year-old San Sebastián Festival on January 20, they’ll see horses being bathed and blessed on the beach by local priests. For me, on a balmy late December afternoon, it was the perfect place to just pull up a chair, soak up the rays and relax with a book. Dickens’ A Christmas Carol seemed timely but rather incongruous in the 27C heat, so I returned to the Mirador for Christmas Eve drinks with some of the new friends I’d met at one of the hotel’s fitness classes that morning. We laughed as a local singer’s rendition of Let it Snow
rang out from the cocktail bar below. Somewhere else right then, possibly even in the UK, flakes might well have been falling. But here in the Mirador’s outdoor hot tub, clinking champagne flutes in the sun, Walking on Sunshine seemed a far more fitting tune for Christmas in the Canaries. TW
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EasyJet holidays offers seven nights at the Joia El Mirador by Iberostar for £3,033 per person, including breakfast and 23kg luggage, transfers and flights from Gatwick departing December 20.
easyjet.com/holidays
18 SEPTEMBER 2025 59
The beach of Las Canteras, in the heart of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, plays host to a huge nativity scene sculpted from sand by local and international artists. The sculpture can rise to five metres and use 2,000 tons of sand.
5 CANARIAN CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS 2
On New Year’s Eve, Canarians eat 12 grapes at midnight to ring in the new year. If clients can stay on a little longer, they’ll witness the extravagant Three Kings Parade (pictured), which takes place across the Canary Islands on January 5.
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Food forms a crucial part of Christmas in the Canary Islands. Clients can taste sugar-dusted truchas pastries (pictured), made with sweet potato and almonds, bienmesabe (egg-based almond dessert), frangollo corn pudding and roasted goat.
In Lanzarote, clients can witness the time-honoured Rancho de Pascua – a festive ritual dating from the 16th century – in the village of Teguise on Christmas Eve. Musicians gather in the main church to sing about the birth of Jesus, while children dressed as angels and shepherds look on.
PICTURES: Shutterstock/nito, Tamara Kulikova, photo_smirnov, vasanty, Nigel Jarvis
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