The stretch between 20 December and 6 January is the oddest week in the Maresme rental calendar. It is high season, but it is not summer: the pool is cold, half the restaurants are shut on the 25th, and a good number of the villas you saw in August are on 32-night seasonal contracts and cannot take you at all.
Sometimes. Holiday villas with a tourist licence usually set a seven-night minimum over Christmas and New Year, and some ask for ten or fourteen nights across both holidays. Seasonal rentals — the ones advertised as alquiler de temporada — are a different product with a 32-night minimum, so a five-night stay simply does not exist there. If a listing says both "monthly" and "holiday", ask which contract they will actually sign.
One more thing worth knowing: a tourist licence is issued per property and is tightly regulated in Catalonia. A villa without one cannot legally take you for a week. It happens anyway. The legal risk sits with the owner, but the practical risk sits with you — a last-minute cancellation or a closure after an inspection is not how anyone wants to spend the 24th.
Yes, in the way a stone house near the sea is cold: 8–14 °C outside, higher humidity, and a house that has stood empty for three weeks. Maresme villas vary wildly. Some have underfloor heating and aerotermia. Some have a fireplace in the living room and one split unit upstairs and nothing else. Ask what heats the bedrooms, not what heats the house.
The pool is usually the deal-breaker. Many owners switch the pump down and cover it from November. Heating it is possible — a heat pump can hold 26–28 °C — but it is not free, and most holiday lets either charge it separately or simply say no in December. If a listing shows a blue, sparkling pool in a December photo, ask for the date of that photo.
The 24th is a family evening: dinner late, presents after midnight in many households, and almost everything shut from the afternoon. The 25th is quiet — a handful of restaurants open, mostly booked weeks ahead, and the beach empty and beautiful. The 26th, Sant Esteve, is a Catalan holiday, which surprises visitors who planned to go shopping.
Then life normalises until the 31st, when restaurants run special menus at special prices, and the 1st is a dead day again. The 6th of January is Three Kings — the real family day in Spain, with parades in Mataró, Arenys de Mar and Calella on the evening of the 5th. R1 trains run holiday timetables: fewer carriages, earlier last train. Book taxis for the 24th and the 31st in advance; there are never enough of them.
Deposit and damage waiver, what is included (linen, towels, firewood, utilities, final cleaning), the heating charge, whether the pool is open at all, exact check-in and check-out times over the holidays, and what happens if the boiler dies on the 25th — there should be a phone number that actually answers. Ask about the fianza too: on a weekly holiday let it is normally a few hundred euros, returned after the cleaner has been through.
And read the cancellation clause twice. Holiday bookings usually carry a stricter scale than summer ones, for the simple reason that the owner has exactly one chance to fill that week.
Barcelona in December is lights, markets and crowds. A Maresme villa is a fireplace and a ten-minute drive to a supermarket that closes at nine. If the plan involves grandparents, small children and cooking, the coast is easier. If it involves restaurants and walking everywhere, take a flat in the city and hire a car for one day at the beach.
Tell us the dates and how many people are coming. We will check what is genuinely available for a short stay, which houses are warm in December, and which are on contracts that will not work for a week.
Ask about holiday dates Download the rental checklist (PDF)