Christmas lights are lit in Soller and many shops have stumbled into Christmas wondering where the rest of the year has gone. What to do with this very long season which we have all welcomed so early this year. We were all looking for an excuse to do something different and the trees are pride of place.
A visit to El Cortes in Festival Park saw them doing a great trade in artificial trees with a 70% discount. People who had never before thought of a tree were doing just that at give away prices. The past weekend has been one of the busiest of their years as it tags on to the two Bank Holidays. Shopkeepers were all really hoping to have recouped some of their losses.
Soller children, by tradition have always been ambivalent about Father Christmas. Yes, he arrives on Christmas Eve and leaves a small gift, which is gratefully received. The main event is always saved for the arrival of the Three Kings in January. It is then that the full wish list is hoped for. Imagine our Soller surprise when the news came out that Father Christmas, in his sleigh will be flying over the Soller Valley from 6.30 pm on Christmas Eve!
During Lockdown we witnessed the Moors and Christians battle in the air and I wonder if something has been learnt from that experience. We are all very excited to turn our eyes heavenward on that date to see the Reindeer and the Man with the bag…
Christmas came early to Soller when the grants were awarded last week. The Consell of Majorca presented the aid grants to the municipalities of Mallorca amounting to 23 million euros in the biennium 2020-2021 This included the request from Soller council for 260,000 towards the pedestrianisation of the Gran Via.
This is a huge programme which will link the street to the car park and form the centre of big changes in our town. This financial award was a great boost to the mind set of many of our local politicians who have been working towards this for a very long time.
A nother infrastructure announcement was made which will affect the Soller train at the Palma end. In the future it will share its line with the new Tram to be developed for Palma to Son Espases Hospital. The station and the platform will be shared between train and Tram and, apparently save a fortune in the infrastructure. These ideas have also been in the development stage for years too and join many other big projects ready to come to fruition in the next two years.
The boom has begun in holiday bookings for 2021. A surge these past few days in enquiries for holidays after May 2021. Holidays and hospitality will be able to happen, vaccine permitting, is the thinking from businesses and customers alike. The management of expectations still has to happen from all the resorts. We don’t want to promise what we can’t deliver.
For instance, there is a desire to have the mother of all parties for Firo in May 2021 in Soller. The powers that be are already suggesting that Firo 2021 will not be able to happen. The event takes huge preparation and there is nothing to say that restrictions of one sort or another might still be in place. So the huge party to end all parties is likely to happen in 2022 instead.
The plans are now in the scheduling department for all the major works likely to be coming our way. All unlikely to trouble us before Christmas so after the lights switch on and piped Christmas music in the square nothing left but to have fun. To celebrate life and almost the end of a year of angst, is high on the list.
In fact, the party people amongst us are already planning the hedonism for mid year 2021. We will do as we are told until we don’t have to anymore, then watch this space! So much pent up desire for fun, frivolity, no rules and anything goes. We will sit at Sunday lunch table for 25 again, we will have parties on the beach, we will hug and kiss the world! Just a few months more to wait my friends, just a few more months…