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Catalonia's Christmas tradition involves beating a log until it poops candy [1]

['Ellsworth Toohey']

Date: 2025-12-10  

In Catalonia, Christmas involves a hollowed-out log with a painted face, stick legs, and a little red hat. Children feed it nuts and dried fruit for weeks, keep it warm under a blanket, and then on Christmas Eve, they beat it with sticks while singing songs commanding it to defecate nougat.

This is the Tió de Nadal, and it's been a thing since at least the Middle Ages.

The tradition starts on December 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, when families set out the log and children begin caring for it. They give it water and food so it will grow strong enough to produce gifts. Then, on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, the children grab sticks and start whacking while singing songs that translate roughly to "Sh*t, log!" When they lift the blanket, sweets and small presents have appeared — ideally turró, a nougat-and-almond confection that's the traditional Catalan Christmas treat.

The songs are specific about what the log should and shouldn't produce. Children ask for sweets and wafers, and explicitly request that they not defecate stinky herring.

The tradition likely originated as a pagan Winter Solstice celebration, when rural Catalans would burn a large tree trunk through the winter months. Somewhere along the way, the burning log became a pooping log with a face, because folklore is strange and wonderful. The Tió de Nadal is now a fixture of Catalan Christmas celebrations alongside another beloved local tradition: the caganer, a figurine of a person defecating that appears in nativity scenes.

Catalonia really commits to a theme.

Previously:

• Chinese restaurant sign thanks Jews for eating there on Christmas

• The Prince Christmas Tree

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