I am going to spend this Christmas in Tarragona and, even though you don’t know me, I am one of those people that they say lacks all the Christmas spirit, until I see the kids overjoyed with the presents that they want to ask the Three Wise Men or Santa Clause for, and it is at this very moment when I go through a metamorphosis that leads me to love my fellows from afar and count well the coins I have in my purse so I don’t overspend my tight budget.
I would like to recover the thrill of Christmas. I would like to spend Christmas in Tarragona. I’ve been told that there is an ice-rink in Plaça Verdaguer (from the 25th of November to the 8th of January), where families go with the kids to laugh at them every time one of them falls on their bottom and then they hug each other to heal the bruises.
I would like to see the re-enactment of the first Christmas in history, to see if my own being is moved, because this will be carried out in the city under the name of Anno Domini, with performances on Saturday the 17th and Sunday the 18th of December for just 10 Euro. It will be shown in Tarragona’s archaeological walkway, which seems to be a place full of the city’s history, and I will take advantage of it to forget my own personal past and take a step back to open my mind as to how I would have survived if I had had to live in Anno Domini. Maybe my story would be more similar to “Life of Brian” by Monty Python.
I would like to pull the “Nose Man’s” nose. And you would ask; what? Who? Yes! Every year, on the 31st of December, the Nose Man comes out, a mythological Catalan character that has as many noses as the days in a year and, because it is the 31st, he only has one nose left and he can easily blend in with everyone else… and that… gets up my nose.
I would like to see how those trying to be brave jump into the sea on the last day of the year just to get a little participants’ medal for the last dip of the year, lying to their families and friends saying it wasn’t so hard and encouraging them to share their daring and the likely emergence of the feared flu.
I would like to spend Christmas in this city where Their Majesties the Magic Kings arrive by sea at one of the most important ports in the country. Where they then parade with their pageboys and helpers throughout the city, handing out sweets. I want to have a battle during the parade with all the grandparents carrying umbrellas, which they use to mark their territory and then turn them inside-out to catch an enormous amount of sweets for their grandchildren and relatives, caught up in the Christmas spirit that the little smiles in their homes have rekindled in them. And in that way I will let myself get carried away with everything the city offers me and, finally, recover the thrill. And finish by saying that Tarragona, I like it.
THE WHOLE Nadal a Tarragona 2016 (PDF) PROGRAMME
Text: Sara García León
