Spain: Village Villar de Corneja celebrates New Year at 12 noon

It's already a tradition: The Spanish village of Villar de Corneja celebrated the beginning of the new year at 12 noon on New Year's Eve this year as well. Around 70 residents and visitors wished on the main square a happy new year.

According to the Spanish New Year's Eve tradition, everyone ate a bunch of grapes shortly before the turn of the year for twelve bells of the town hall tower. (Read here, which customs New Year's Eve is celebrated around the world.)

The reason for the early New Year's Eve celebration: The 37 residents have a very high average age and want to be on December 31

at midnight long since in bed. The turn of the year is celebrated in this community about 150 kilometers west of Madrid, therefore since 2004 at noon.

Bed instead of Böller, cider instead of sparkling wine

The average age of the residents is over 80 years, said Mayor Carmen Hernández Interview with radio station Cope. At midnight, among other things, it was too cold to gather the elderly in front of the city hall clock. That's why Hernández devised the unusual action 14 years ago. Because of the high average age, the new year is no longer greeted with sparkling wine, but with cider from Sidra, she said.

Villar de Corneja has been suffering from rural depopulation for countless other villages in Spain for decades. Younger people move to the metropolitan areas, the birth rates are falling to zero. The village had about 350 inhabitants in the 1950s. Since there were four deaths in 2018, the community has only 37 residents instead of 41 in 2017, of which only 13 live permanently.

"We will celebrate New Year's Eve at noon until the village no longer exists," said Hernández.