Midday Party For Villagers Who Set The Clocks To Celebrate 2026 Early

MADRID, Jan 1 (Bernama-dpa) -- A village in Spain changed the time on its clocks so residents could celebrate the New Year early, reported German Press Agency (dpa).

The 28 residents of Villar de Corneja – only four of whom live there year-round – are elderly and did not want to stay up until midnight to welcome 2026.

The municipality, about 150 kilometres west of Madrid, had decided instead to mark the arrival of the new year at midday.

The villagers adopted the custom in 2004 and have celebrated earlier ever since, opening bottles of champagne and wishing one another “Feliz Año Nuevo!” (Happy New Year).

As elsewhere in Spain, they gathered in the main square, where about 70 locals and visitors marked the turn of the year by eating a grape with each of the 12 chimes of the town hall clock.

Looking ahead, Mayor Carmen Hernández said she fears the locality may not survive much longer. “Unfortunately, villages like this are doomed to extinction,” she told radio station Cadena Ser.

Like many other villages in Spain, Villar de Corneja has struggled with rural depopulation for decades and was home to about 350 people in the 1950s.

--BERNAMA-dpa