Scribbler in Seville

The Giralda glows golden behind the dazzling Christmas lights in Plaza Nueva.

The façade of the Ayuntamiento sparkles in festive mood.

Seville at Christmas-time feels wonderfully festive, with people going about their business – whether local Sevillanos working, meeting friends, buying presents or visiting belens (nativity scenes), or visitors under the spell cast by an already magical city at its most delightful – under the pretty, sparkling, colourful lights.

Every Christmas I try to take some interesting foodie treatsto England, to add a Spanish flavour to our family meal. Last year we had cheese from Doñana Park with a special edition Tio Pepe sherry (Dos Palmas), which worked beautifully together and went down a treat with everyone.

Doña Manuela cheese from the Sierra de Aracena.

As delicious as it is hard to find – smoked tuna.

This time, we’ll be feasting on goat’s cheese from Doña Manuela’s farm in the Sierra Aracena, which I visited with the kids earlier this year, some manchego with red wine, smoked tuna, and Botani dry muscatel.

The first two I bought in Triana market, at the Charcuteria Alfredo stall – across the river from the new gourmet Lonja del Barranco market, which I shall be writing about soon. The atun ahumado was from another market, in calle Feria, where David, a young guy from the fishing town of Barbate, also offers products from the famous almadraba tuna. I wrote about his stall, La Almadraba, in my travel article for the Guardian back in May, but sadly it didn’t make the final cut in the published version. The smoked tuna I bought isn’t almadraba, but it is extremely good, and I’ve never seen it anywhere else.

Botani – dry white muscatel wine from Malaga.

The sparkling version of Botani.

The wine, Botani, I first found out about from fellow Seville blogger and Tapas Queen Shawn Hennessey (I also interviewed the winemaker, Victoria Ordoñez, for a travel magazine). Unusually for muscatel wine from Malaga, which is normally sweet, this is a dry wine – yet floral and fruity without being too honeyed or sickly (I HATE sweet white wine; semi-dulce is very common in Spain). In Seville you can buy Botani at Flores Jamones y Vinos. I also got some of the sparkling version which I’ve never tried before.

For buying Christmas presents to take back to England, my favourite hunting grounds are the various crafts markets, full of original handmade pieces, where you can meet the creators behind the artworks, sculptures, jewellery, and ceramics.

Mechanized wedding scene, which also features both bankers and politicians being cooked in pots.

At the Plaza Nueva Christmas craft market, also known as the Mercado Navideño de Artesania, I found this stall of beautiful handmade wooden toys from Granada, Arbole. They had a full-sized puppet theatre, wooden trains, ride-ons, and mechanized toys.

These included a detailed model of a wedding ceremony in a church, with an extraordinary contemporary subtext: beneath the congregation was a version of hell with two chambers, one labelled banqueros (bankers) and the other politicos (politicians), populated by diablitos (little devils). Two men, (presumably) an abuser of democratic power and an arbiter of financial mismanagement, were being cooked in pots over flames.

As hilarious as it was surreal, this seemed a fitting expression of what many Spanish feel about the political and financial powers that be.

Happy Christmas, and here’s to a better 2015!