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The Spanish village that celebrates New Year in August
Christmas and New Year offer a ray of light amid the bleak darkness of winter. While the summer may feel like a daily celebration of its own, with the music, the beach and relaxation, some aspects of society remain fixed in a routine. However, one Spanish village is operating on a totally different level.
Bérchules, situated near Granada, has taken the decision to flip reverse social norms and celebrate the New Year in the height of summer. However, they haven’t been following this tradition for an eternity and, in actuality, only implemented the policy in 1994. Contrary to popular belief, the idea wasn’t initiated as a way to draw tourists to the village. However, to their delight, the event put the village on a tourist map, and the Andalusian government recognised the party in 2018 for its significance to the local tourism industry.
The village didn’t plan on becoming an August hotspot, and after a power cut ruined their evening of festivities on December 31st, 1993, they ensured that the local people would still have their moment to party. Thinking outside of the box, locals decided to move New Year’s Eve to August, and the decision changed the fortunes of Bérchules.
Ismael Padilla Gervilla, a Bérchules native, was only 11 when the village welcomed the New Year by candlelight. He recalled to the BBC: “For hours we listened to an old battery-powered radio that my parents had brought back from their time in Germany – we never used to listen to that radio because we always watched TV – but that night it was really useful.”
“The original idea to wait until August was simply so that the bars, restaurants, shops and nightclubs could recover their losses from the past December 31st, and to take advantage of the summer tourists,” Padilla Gervilla told the same publication. “But it was such a success that we’ve continued celebrating it [then] ever since.”
For a village with a population of around 800, it’s remarkable that each summer, around 10,000 people flock to Bérchules. Not only do they party, but they also provide the local economy with a boost that they couldn’t have dreamt about before the power cut.
The smell of local festive cuisine fills the air, and visitors are even joined by the Three Wise Men on horseback to fully make it feel like the Christmas period. During Covid-times, they tried to make it work under socially distanced conditions, but this year it returned in epic style.
The idea of people roaming the streets across Great Britain eating pigs and blankets from food stalls in the blazing summer sun with East 17 on the speakers doesn’t sit right, but in Bérchules, it works. When they had the New Year’s Eve from hell in 1993, nobody could have foreseen it becoming the most important date on the calendar.
On the first weekend of August, thousands of people come together to sing Christmas Carols, play festive games, ring the bells, and participate in the traditional Spanish grape-eating activity, which is usually restricted to New Year’s.
Bérchules have shown time is merely a social construct, and if you want to celebrate Halloween in March, then there’s nothing stopping a local community from doing so. Their inspirational tale is a valiant lesson in making a negative into a positive, and long may the tradition continue.
