Well that’s Christmas over for another year. Your belt buckle needs loosening, your wallet has become a black hole and the only turkey you want to see in the next twelve months is the one where people wear a fez, drink mint tea and beat your bare feet with bats if you try to smuggle hashish.

Except that here in Tenerife it isn’t over. In fact it’s only just begun. In this topsy turvy land, Christmas begins with a big feast on Christmas Eve and ends two weeks later when the Tres Reyes (Three Kings) hit town and children wake up on 6th January to find if they’ve been good enough to warrant any pressies.

The good news for visitors looking for Tenerife deals is that they get to enjoy two Christmases…and the icing on the Christmas cake is that the second one comes stress-free.

The question is though, where are the best places to partake of some intoxicatingly sparkly Christmas spirit?

Here’s Tenerife Magazine’s photo guide to the four most Christmassy towns on Tenerife

Christmas in Puerto de la Cruz
In fourth place is Puerto de la Cruz. In truth, the Christmas decorations are a little disappointing this year in Tenerife’s first tourist resort. There’s a distinct lack of colour about the town, possibly because the giant wheel at the funfair nicked all the best lightbulbs. However, there’s still enough magic about to bring on some Christmas cheer.

Plaza Europa in front of the town hall: Gold, gold and more gold – clearly the colour theme in Puerto de la Cruz this year.

Thank goodness for the funfair and an injection of much needed colour.

Christmas in La Laguna
In third place is La Laguna. There’s a distinct Dickensian feel to the decorations in La Laguna helped by cobbled streets, historic buildings, Victorian style street lights and vendors selling hot toffee and baked potatoes from little carts.

Plaza del Adelantado, La Laguna: Pretty, if a bit understated.

This is much better: Street vendors and coloured sparkly balls – now we’re getting there.

Christmas in Santa Cruz
In second place is the island’s capital, Santa Cruz. Plaza España is remarkably understated, but the streets between Plaza de la Candelaria and Plaza del Príncipe are enchanting festive grottos featuring trees festooned with multi-coloured twinkling lights. The big bonus in Santa Cruz is that throughout the Christmas period, live music in the streets provides that special finishing touch. At any one time choir singing, jazz and even a Beatles tribute act add a musical soundtrack to the city’s festive scene.

The Circulo de Amistad building knows exactly how to dress for Christmas.

I bet you can’t walk down this street without humming Winter Wonderland – even if you are sweating at the time.

The Noria district: Palm trees and Christmas lights.

Christmas in La Orotava
The classiest town on Tenerife has come up trumps by also having the classiest Christmas decorations. For providing a healthy dose of good old-fashioned Christmas atmosphere, La Orotava wins by a nose. The life-sized belén in front of the town hall is hard to beat, but Plaza de la Constitución manages it with a gingerbread house bandstand, illuminated Christmas parcels and a tree-covered walkway with dripping icicles. A visit to the town is the perfect antidote for eliminating any Scrooge-like tendencies.

A life-size nativity scene outside La Orotava’s Town Hall. Can you get any more Christmassy?

….well, this might just about trump it.

The Iglesia de la Concepción at dusk adds the perfect finishing touch to the nativity scene.

Despite being the former capital city of Tenerife, San Cristóbal de La Laguna (its Sunday-best name) still rarely makes it on to the radar of many visitors.

And yet it boasts an old quarter which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (which means loads of interesting nooks and crannies) and a University (which means loads of ‘too cool for school’ bars, clubs and restaurants).

Dusky City Streets

Who needs film sets when you’ve got streets like this? It’s wonderfully quaint during the day and absolutely magical at dusk. All that’s missing is a pony and trap, some swirling mist (not too much of a problem in La Laguna) and a Jack the Ripper character lurking in the background.

Little Ol’ Wine Drinker, Me

Not the most welcoming face to be greeted with when you enter a bar, but maybe he’s just fed up waiting for someone to bring him his vino del país (country wine). Bars and restaurants are full of imaginative touches; although some bars have such a ‘relaxed’ décor that it’s worth checking that they are a bar and not someone’s living room.

Face in the Fountain

Much of old La Laguna was built in an age when attention to detail was the order of the day – hmmm, I wonder what happened to that particular quality? It’s worth keeping the old eyes peeled to try to spot little gems like this manic  Bacchus-type face ‘gobbing’ on passers-by from the top of the marble fountain in the Plaza del Adelantado.

Still Waters

It’s nice to have a green spot to chill out when the city’s streets become too hectic. Not that hectic and La Laguna’s old streets are words which go together… unless you’re trying to negotiate them in a car. It would seem strange to have somewhere named after a lagoon if there wasn’t at least some sort of water feature in the vicinity.

Spice up Your Life

As we don’t have the technology for ‘scratch and sniff’ photographs, you’ll have to trust me when I tell you that the aroma here is enough to send you delirious. The agricultural market is a foodie’s paradise and one of the best places on Tenerife to buy fruit, veg, dried fish and… ahem, whole skinned baby goats.

Stone Throne

This shot typifies the feel of La Laguna’s old quarter; rough plastered walls, wide polished wooden doors, cobbled streets and an ancient-looking stone bench. It’s the perfect place to rest the feet after they’ve been pounding the alleys. But don’t linger too long, that stone slab seat looks as though it could be murder on the haemorrhoids.