Every December 21, Santo Tomás (🗣 santotomasak) is celebrated in western areas of the Basque Country, especially in Bilbao (Bizkaia), Donostia (Gipuzkoa), and towns like Azpeitia. It started as a practical day: baserritarras (farmers) came to town to pay rent to landowners and used the trip to sell products from the baserria (farmhouse) and buy what they needed for winter. That market day slowly became a festivity.
For me, it always began as a family lunch. Talo, cheese, rosquillas or coquitos. My parents drank sagardo (cider); my brother and I, water 🌮🍾
Later, after starting Basque Studies, Santo Tomás became closely linked to my new Basque-speaking world. I started celebrating it more in Gipuzkoa, with Basque-speaking friends, one year Donostia, another Azpeitia...
These days it starts at lunchtime with my ama (mom) in Bilbao: walking around the stands, usually missing talo because it's packed, and drinking sagardo (yes, now is all I do 👐). Later on, I meet up with friends, the music shifts from traditional to more western-like, and I end up spending most of the day outside.
Until now I always dressed as arrantzale (fisherwoman, coastal outfit). This is the first year I'm going as a kasera/baserritarra (female farmer), warmer and more winter-like. It was my ama's (https://www.instagram.com/resienamanesi/" rel="nofollow">@resienamanesi ) Christmas present 🎄
The word aldeanos (literally "villagers") was often used pejoratively by city dwellers to dismiss people from the countryside, and by Spanish speakers to stigmatize Basque speakers as backward or unsophisticated. That stigma was also reproduced within bilingual communities, when bilingual speakers themselves distanced from Basque or rural ways of speaking and used the same labels against other Basque speakers or town-based peers, reinforcing that violence against their own. Today, those people and ways of life are celebrated by entire cities, at least, a couple of days a year.
Ending the day out in a street rave with friends in my kasera outfit feels like a pretty good summary of how times have changed. Plot twist.
I can't help but wonder what our countryside ancestors would think if they could see it now. Pride, scandal, or a mix of both? 🫠
Originally posted on Instagram on December 22, 2025: view the original post.
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