The short version: winter in Mallorca is not an empty season; it is the island’s own season. Between November and February, Mallorcans head into the pine woods for mushrooms, hold the family matances, light the fire at home, sit down to long lunches, fill Inca for Dijous Bo, keep Christmas their way and spend two January nights around the bonfires of Sant Antoni. Then the almond trees flower. These are ten things that mark the Mallorcan winter, told from what we see in the south-east and from the island’s official sources.
Where the island’s winter happens
Visitors who know Mallorca only in summer imagine its winter from the coast. At Cala Llombards, near Santanyí, the cove turns back into the village’s cove, with neighbors and a few winter swimmers. But the Mallorcan winter happens mostly inland: in the countryside, in the kitchen, at the table and in the village squares. The weather and how houses stay warm are in our guide to winter in Mallorca; this story is about the life.
1. They open the season with Tots Sants
In the Mallorcan calendar, winter is announced on November 1. A cultural leaflet published by the Ajuntament de Calvià describes All Saints’ Day, Tots Sants, and the Day of the Dead that follows as autumn feasts that announce the closeness of winter: longer nights, shorter days, and the start of the sowing. Families visit the cemetery with flowers, and the season has its own food. The same leaflet lists roasted chestnuts, panellets, small almond sweets, and bunyols, fritters eaten from the eve of Les Verges in late October, together with the rosaris, strings of candied fruit, panellets and chocolate that young godparents give their godchildren. It also prints an old saying that sums up the weeks ahead: De Tots Sants a Sant Andreu, vent o pluja o fred o neu, “from All Saints to Saint Andrew, wind or rain or cold or snow.”
2. They go out for mushrooms after the rain
In what we see, once the first autumn rains have soaked the ground, Mallorcans go out into the countryside for mushrooms, and the morning’s finds end up in the kitchen. One mushroom, the esclata-sang, even has its own fair: the Balearic Government’s tourism site notes that in autumn Mancor de la Vall holds an esclata-sang fair, with mushroom dishes, crafts, music, folk dancing and correfocs.
The Government’s public health service publishes its own advice for mushroom pickers: collect only the mushrooms you can identify as edible, avoid eating mushrooms gathered by others unless you are sure they are experts, and leave those growing by roadsides.
3. They go to Dijous Bo in Inca
In November, Mallorcans head for Inca. Dijous Bo, “Good Thursday”, is the town’s great autumn fair, which its tourism office, Inca Turística, describes as a giant open-air market drawing visitors from all over the island. In 2026 it falls on Thursday, November 19, according to the Ajuntament d’Inca. The Government’s calendar of local holidays marks Friday, November 20, as Inca’s holiday, “the Friday after Dijous Bo.” Its history, program and practical side are in our guide to Dijous Bo in Inca.
4. They hold the matances
The matances are the winter pig slaughter, and they are as much a family gathering as a task. The official tourism site of the Ajuntament de Manacor, in its gastronomic guide, explains that the pig was fattened all year for the winter matances, a family tradition that brought together relatives, friends, neighbors and acquaintances who came to help, and that most of the pig went into sobrassada. They stocked the house with food for the year.
In the countryside of the south-east, we still see them in winter: the family and its neighbors working together for a day, as the Manacor guide describes.
5. They light the fire at home
On a winter evening in a Mallorcan village, the smoke from the chimneys is part of the scene. In the houses we visit, the fireplace is lit from November on and the family gathers around it in the evening, for as long as the fire lasts. Whatever other heating a house has, for the families we know the fire remains part of the winter.
6. They sit down to a long lunch in a celler
Winter is the season of the long lunch, the one that starts around 1:30 and is never rushed. In what we see, it happens at home and in the cellers. Inca’s tourism office, Inca Turística, describes the cellers as restored buildings where wine was once made and stored in large wooden barrels; the vineyard was Inca’s main crop until phylloxera ended it in the 19th century. They are tall rooms under a beamed ceiling, below or at street level, and today they are restaurants. How the island’s meal times work is in our guide to meal times and tipping.
7. They keep Christmas their way
Mallorca’s Christmas has a sound of its own. On the night of December 24, at matins, churches across the island hear the Chant of the Sibyl, inscribed by UNESCO in 2010 on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. A boy or girl sings it, walking through the church toward the chancel with a sword held upright, accompanied by altar children carrying candles, and at the end draws a cross in the air with the sword.
Then comes the table. The Government’s tourism site describes the island’s Christmas cooking: a Christmas soup of bread, meat and vegetables, stuffed dishes such as the carn freda, roast or stewed suckling pig, turkey dishes and, in many coastal villages, a fish stew on Christmas Day. December 26 is also a holiday in the Balearic Islands, and families gather again around the leftovers. The same site lists the sweets: almond turrons, the coca de torró between two wafers, and hot chocolate with ensaïmadas after Midnight Mass. The turkey connection with Thanksgiving is in our guide to Thanksgiving in Mallorca.
8. They wait for the Three Kings
In Spain, the children’s gifts arrive on January 6, the Epiphany, a public holiday in the Government’s 2026 calendar. The evening before, the Three Kings reach the island. According to the Government’s guide to Mallorca in January, every January 5 they arrive by boat at the port of Palma and set off on a float through the city. For Mallorcan families it is the night that closes the Christmas season.
9. They light the foguerons of Sant Antoni
Ten days later comes a fiesta that, in the Government’s words, is loved by the islanders. Its tourism site explains that Sant Antoni, patron saint of animals, is celebrated every year on January 16 and 17, with the most spectacular celebrations in Sa Pobla, Manacor and Artà, where foguerons, bonfires, and dimonis, demons, take center stage. Its page on the festival’s traditions describes the solemn Completes, the Goigs sung to the saint, the departure of the demons that opens the night of the 16th, the bonfires with sobrassada, botifarrons, espinagades and coques amb pebres, and, on the 17th, the Beneïdes, the blessing of animals. In 2026, January 17 was a local holiday in Sa Pobla, Manacor, Artà, Muro, Pollença and Ses Salines, according to the Government’s calendar of local holidays.
What we see is the fire. On the night of the 16th, the village streets fill with bonfires, and neighbors gather around them to grill and talk until late. Three days later Palma has its own fiesta: January 20 is Sant Sebastià, the city’s patron saint, and on the night of the 19th, according to Visit Palma, the city’s tourism foundation, neighbors light bonfires in the squares to grill meat, with concerts, giants, xeremiers playing the traditional pipes and the Drac de na Coca, Palma’s dragon.
10. They watch the almond trees flower
And then the countryside changes color. According to the Government’s tourism site, in January and February, during the almond blossom, Mallorca’s fields are covered with a white blanket touched with pink, and the almond tree has become the usual picture of the island’s interior in winter. The fields between the villages turn white, and the winter ends, as it began, in the countryside.
What you need to know
What do Mallorcans do in winter?
Mushroom picking, family matances, long lunches, Dijous Bo in Inca, Christmas and the Three Kings, the bonfires of Sant Antoni and Sant Sebastià in January and, in January and February, the almond blossom.
When is Sant Antoni in Mallorca?
Every year on January 16 and 17, according to the Balearic Government’s tourism site: bonfires and demons on the night of the 16th, the blessing of animals on the 17th.
What are the matances?
The traditional winter pig slaughter, a family gathering of relatives, friends and neighbors that produced the year’s sobrassada, as Manacor’s official tourism site describes.
When do the almond trees blossom in Mallorca?
In January and February, according to the Balearic Government’s tourism site, when the fields of the interior turn white and pink.
When is Dijous Bo 2026?
On Thursday, November 19, 2026, according to the Ajuntament d’Inca; Friday, November 20, is Inca’s local holiday.
Where we work
We work across Mallorca from our base in the south-east, where you can browse homes in Santanyí, homes in Ses Salines and homes in Campos. To compare areas through the year, see our guide on where to live in Mallorca, or contact Villas y Fincas Mallorca and we will answer in English.
Updated October 2026. Dates and descriptions come from the Balearic Government (calendar of local holidays 2026, public health advice on mushrooms and the official tourism site illesbalears.travel), UNESCO, the Ajuntament d’Inca, Inca Turística, the Ajuntament de Calvià, the Ajuntament de Manacor’s tourism site and Visit Palma, all consulted in October 2026. Fiesta programs change from year to year; the scenes described as what we see reflect our own experience in the south-east of Mallorca. This story is for general information only.
