TAKE NOTE: NO POST-IMMACULATE CONCEPTION HOLIDAY FOR MADRID!
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by Nathan Collins
One of the most-awaited holidays at Christmas is what the Spaniards call the “puente de diciembre” (December bridge). Usually, it is a three-day holiday because December 6, Constitution Day, is a legal holiday. And so is December 8, Dia de la Inmaculada Concepcion or Feast of the Immaculate Conception. And the expected thing to do for the Autonomous Communities is to “bridge” these two holidays by making the working day sandwiched between these holidays into a holiday too.
But these puentes could go a further extra mile as is the case this year, 2024! You see, Immaculate Conception falls on a Sunday! And since a legal holiday that falls on that day “contaminates” the following day, the latter becomes a holiday too. Just like the day sandwiched between two holidays. The result? Some Autonomous Communities — the operative word here is “some” — are having not a three- but a four-day puente de diciembre.
Madrid is in for a short “puente”.
These Autonomous Communities are Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Castilla y Leon, Extremadura, and Murcia.
People in the Balearics, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalunya, Comunidad Valenciana, Galicia, La Rioja, Madrid, Navarra, and the Basque Country aren’t as fortunate! On Monday, the 9th of December, they’ll be going back to work like any regular working day because their Autonomous Communities have chosen not to “contaminate” the day after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception!
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Images
> Featured image (GUIDEPOST montage). Christmas lights/Jacilluch, CC BY-SA2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Immaculate Conception painting by Francisco Rizi (1614-1685), a Prado Museum collection. Photographer or source unavailable. PD via Wikimedia Commons, cropped.
> Vector (sad)/Clicker-Free-Vector, Pixabay. Text supplied.
