Christmas at the estate

The same thing happens every Christmas: the grandparents' house gets too small for three generations, someone ends up on the sofa, and the kitchen can't keep up with twenty people. Finca La Simona solves all three at once: six en-suite bedrooms, a big kitchen with a wood-fired oven, and a living room with a fireplace where the whole family can sit together.

We publish Christmas availability in October, and dates get booked mostly in October and November: this is the time of year when it pays least to wait until the last minute, because there are few houses in the area that fit 16 people.

The same scene plays out in a lot of families: the grandparents can no longer host twenty people at home, the cousins who live away only meet up at this time of year, and someone suggests a hotel, which solves the beds but splits the meals across two tables and two schedules. A whole estate avoids both problems. The whole family has dinner together, the children sleep near their parents instead of down a hotel corridor, and the conversation after Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve dinner drags on by the fire instead of ending in separate rooms.

The pool closes in September, but the countryside does not: walks through the olive grove on cold, clear mornings, a trip to Toledo lit up for Christmas 35 minutes away, the winter sunset at the Barrancas de Burujón, or a quiet afternoon in Talavera before heading back to the fireplace. You don't need to leave the estate for Christmas to feel different; it just takes room to spare and a kitchen that never runs out of space.