December

Barcelona turns on its Christmas lights with four more kilometres of lighting, while the famous faces in the news this year get the caganer treatment

1. The Christmas lights in Barcelona were switched on on November 24 after a ceremony held in Plaça Major of the Nou Barris district. The city boasts four more kilometres of Christmas lights this year, which will come on every evening at 5.30pm until 10pm (11pm at weekends) and will last until January 6.

2. The squatting figure of the caganer is a mainstay of any Catalan Christmas, and every year there are new celebrities caricatured. Getting the satirical treatment this year are Barça’s Robert Lewandowski, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema.

3. The Baqueira Beret resort was the first in Catalonia, and Spain, to open for the new ski season. The Catalan ski resorts managed by Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC) – Boí Taüll, Espot, Port Ainé and Vallter – planned to open on December 2 in time for La Puríssima public holiday from December 6 to 8.

December 2. The squatting figure of the caganer is a mainstay of any Catalan Christmas, and every year there are new celebrities caricatured. Getting the satirical treatment this year are Barça’s Robert Lewandowski, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema.

4. Kicking off on November 20 with a match between Qatar and Ecuador, the 2022 FIFA World Cup will run until the final in the Lusail stadium (pictured) on December 18. It is the first World Cup to be held in the Arab world, and the first not to be held between May and July, due to Qatar’s intense summer heat.

2022 in the rear-view mirror

2022 in the rear-view mirror.

As every year for its December issue, Catalonia Today once again offered its readers a round-up of some of the main events that dominated the headlines at home and abroad in the previous 12 months, along with reports, opinion and interviews.