The Giant Nativity Scene with which the Alicante Christmas managed to appear in the Guinness Book of Records since 2019 returns to its original location in the Alicante Town Hall Square. Because the works on La Explanada have taken longer than expected, the promenade cannot accommodate the monumental complex, to which the figures of the Three Wise Men were added last year.
Even if it is not with the perspective that the breadth and distance of its previous location allows, the expectation is guaranteed, as data from recent years demonstrate. The Giant Nativity Scene is the work of the Alicante artist José Manuel García 'Pachi'. The set costs about 230,000 euros, to which must be added the cost of storage during the year.
Another of the critical points of Christmas in Alicante is on Paseo de Soto, where the Christmas market should be set up at the beginning of December. The avenue was already very busy this weekend of frenetic shopping, and although it was announced to neighbors and merchants that traffic and the consequent access to fords would be opened on November 24, it is still completely fenced and it is necessary to use narrow temporary steps to move through it. Yesterday, the 26th, an unusual number of workers were trying to speed up the laying of the new pavement on the sidewalks, while on the road there are still ditches to cover and the asphalt remains to be poured.
The Councilor for Festivals, Cristina Cutanda, yesterday presented the activities and the poster, with the motto 'Alicante, your best Christmas'. The councilor explained that "we intend to become a reference for these celebrations, taking as a reference the fountain of the Plaza de los Luceros", another of the places where the works acquired a frenetic pace yesterday, Monday. Apparently, a light and sound show will prologue the inauguration of the Giant Nativity Scene. The assembly of the Nativity will begin on Wednesday, November 29, starting at 10 p.m., and is scheduled to conclude first thing in the morning on Tuesday, December 5.
The first of the events on the Christmas calendar is scheduled for today, Tuesday, November 28, when it is planned to inaugurate the Nativity scene that the Alicante Nativity Scene Association installs every year in the hallway of the Town Hall.
A double date is scheduled for Friday, December 1. Starting at 7 p.m., visits will begin, by appointment, to the House of San Nicolás, located in Seneca Square. The more than 6,000 available reservations were sold out early on Sunday, less than 48 hours after this free service opened. There are many complaints from those who have been left out. But unless someone comes up with another alternative, San Nicolás only has one house in Alicante that will remain open until December 24.
That same day, at 7 p.m., the Montañeta Nativity Scene will be inaugurated, another of the already consolidated traditions, also the work of the Association of Nativity Scene Makers, which has four Nativity scenes with different themes in that space.
One day later it will be the turn of the Birth that the Greater Board of Brotherhoods and Brotherhoods places in the hallway of the 'El Portalet' Palace. Christmas activities also come to the bullring with the installation, from December 2, of the ice skating rink in the Patio de Sol of the bullring.
Alicante will celebrate its Patron Saint, Saint Nicholas, with a double activity on December 6. The Procession will leave, starting at 11 am, from the Co-Cathedral of San Nicolás. After a tour of the Old Town you will reach the Rambla and continue along Altamira Street and Plaza del Ayuntamiento.
At 6 p.m. the XVII Moorish and Christian Entrance will leave from the Plaza de España, organized by the Federation of Moors and Christians of Alicante. It will end in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. Celebrators from Villafranqueza-El Palamó, El Rebolledo and Altozano will participate. To all of them, and as a novelty this year, members of the Federation of Troops and Legions of Cartagena will join.
