Residents of a small village west of the Spanish capital, Madrid, celebrated the New Year by Tuesday noon 12 hours early.
This is because most of the village's residents, who number no more than thirty, are over eighty years old, and do not want to remain alert until midnight to celebrate the New Year in the actual time of its arrival.
Villars de Corneja are used to celebrating the New Year at 12:00 p.m. since 2004.
Visitors to the village join their residents in celebrating the New Year at noon, where they met today, Tuesday, in the village's public square, and addressed grapes, while the bells of the town hall tower rang 12 times.
At the end of the celebration, the village residents exchanged congratulations on the occasion of the new year.
Villar de Corneja, like other rural communities in Spain, has been subject to internal migration for decades, as young people move to urban areas.
The village had a population of more than several hundred people during the 1950s.