It sneaks up on you like a pleasant surprise, rather than lumbering towards you ominously, which is often the feeling of the festivities in the UK: months of planning, panicking and stockpiling enough food for a winter hibernation, then it’s all over in three days and you’re back to work in the January gloom with a hangover and an overdraft.

The festive period in Mallorca is a time to relax, whether you are holidaying or working. After the busy summer which is a hectic frenzy, the autumn and early winter times are the first chance you get to enjoy the downshift in the pace of the island and its melange of European cultures and Christmas traditions.

For many years now the largest of the Balearic archipelago has been home to many Northern Europeans who are keen to keep alive the traditions of their homelands. Subsequently they brought plenty of those traditions with them to throw into the pot that makes up a Spanish, catholic, Mallorquin, Scandinavian, Bavarian, good old fashioned British Christmas. So, Christmas in Mallorca has the best of the lot, even if nobody is quite sure what is going on most of the time.

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