Coronavirus Lockdown Spanish Edition - Day 20 - Canceled festivities

If there's one thing you need to know about Spaniards, it's that they LOVE their traditional holidays! Particularly in small towns, and in certain city neighborhoods that feel like towns. They're bright, colorful, festive... and very noisy! 😂 Marching bands galore, music late into the night, and in this part of Spain (Valencia region) lots of firecrackers and related noise-makers. The big ones around here (Alicante province) are the Hogueras (big ones in Alicante city for June 24th, smaller ones in other towns on different dates) and the Moros y Cristianos (main ones in Alcoi and Villajoyosa, but getting bigger in many other towns like neighboring San Vicente where the university is located).

The thing is... these events bring out massive crowds. Social distancing? Impossible! So one after the other cities and towns have been announcing the postponement of their big holiday. The Hogueras de San Juan in Alicante? Shipped off to the first weekend in September to wrap up the summer instead of launch it. Fallas in Valencia scheduled for mid-March? Just 10 days before (with some of the monuments already half set up!) finally shifted to 2nd half of July. Moros y Cristianos in Alcoi (end of April)? They're considering the first weekend in October. And so on, and so forth. 😥 

Why shift the dates instead of just canceling for this year? Well as I said because (a) people here love their holidays and the ones directly involved (in the parades, monuments etc.) have been planning and preparing for them pretty much since the date after the holiday last year ended. But also in quite a few places for economic reasons. The places that have big name festivities draw in not just the locals, but tourists from around the country and sometimes internationally. Huge injection into the local economy for those days, and they're not willing to lose that (main reason why Valencia waited so long to cancel the Fallas, the rest of the country thought they were crazy each day we didn't hear a cancellation announcement). That and HOPE. Hope that this will be over by the summer. Hope life will get back to normal. So instead of having the holiday on the traditional date (usually associated with the town's patron saint), they've all been searching for alternate Summer or Fall dates, in conjunction with the associations for the corresponding holiday and related businesses (for example the marching bands who might spend most of their summer working in one holiday or another).

A fabulous meme that's been flying around gives the impression that we'll be celebrating all these events in one big mash-up in September! 😅 Although honestly I don't think anyone will actually make a serious attempt to launch the Holy Week processions in 6 months... Or at least I hope not! Would seem totally out of place.

With all these hopeful announcements of delays, our neighboring town of San Vicente has actually been the first to announce (today) that they are canceling their holiday of Moros y Cristianos for 2020 (takes place weekend after Easter), not postponing it. Sad but reasonable! They announced that the 2021 edition will basically just follow the plans laid out for 2020. This means the people involved in key roles this year won't get the short end of the straw, but they can continue planning and go all out next year. This is one of the holidays I  hold dear, as several of my friends are directly involved in it and they've both roped me in some years, or just let me party with them like crazy other years. 😜 Next year we'll have to make up for it.

Until next year! 😎 (photo from Moros 2019)

#stayhome #quedateencasa #yomequedoencasa #restecheztoi