Sanse 2021 | The Fiestas That Couldn’t Be!

Yeah, that’s me in 2008. Click to see image larger.

Puer­to Rico has one of the longest Christ­mas sea­sons in the world. It starts on Thanks­giv­ing day and ends with “las octavi­tas”. These are the eight days that fol­low “Three Kings Day”, which takes place on Jan­u­ary 6. Anoth­er event that usu­al­ly coin­cides with “las octavi­tas” is “Las Fies­tas De La Calle San Sebas­t­ian” (The San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas), which usu­al­ly take place on the third week­end of Jan­u­ary, from Thurs­day to Sun­day. This year it would’ve been Sanse 2021.

So why Sanse 2021? Along the years some “cre­ative” pub­li­cist came up with the idea of short­en­ing the name of the fies­tas to SanSe XXXXX, where the exes are replaced with the cor­re­spond­ing year. I per­son­al­ly hate the idea. I feel like it cheap­ens the event and detracts from its char­ac­ter and tra­di­tion. After all, you don’t hear any­one call Las Fies­tas de San Fer­mín “la SanFe”, or Mar­di Gras “the Margra”.

World renown events like “Las Fies­tas De La Calle San Sebastián” have earned their world class sta­tus through the hard work of hun­dreds of every­day peo­ple who devote time and ener­gy and gen­er­al­ly don’t expect any­thing in return. We shouldn’t throw out decades of name recog­ni­tion only to replace them with fad­dish com­mer­cial monikers.

But hey, that’s only my opin­ion.  Let me get of my soapbox…

Click on image to see it larger.

This year SanSe 2021 (God, I hate that name!) is not going to hap­pen. Covid-19 took care of that. After all, the “largest street fies­tas in the world”, tak­ing place in the month of Jan­u­ary, would’ve been the “largest super spread­er” in the his­to­ry of the Coro­na Virus Pandemic.

Just imag­ine close to half a mil­lion peo­ple, spread over a four-day peri­od, con­gre­gat­ed in a cou­ple of nar­row streets in Old San Juan, shoul­der to shoul­der like canned sar­dines. Puer­to Rico would become the Covid-19 capi­tol of the world in no time!  Dr. Fau­ci would cringe!!!

So, incom­ing may­or Miguel Romero did the right thing. He can­celled them. Albeit, I still don’t get the “divine will” part, that he says was the main cri­te­ria for his deci­sion. With all due respect Mr. May­or, God didn’t cause the pro­lif­er­a­tion of Covid-19. It was human haugh­ti­ness, stu­pid­i­ty and sheer care­less­ness. But then again, let me get off my soapbox…

In any case, if you were plan­ning to spend some time in Puer­to Rico, warm up and attend Sanse 2021, you’ll have to plan for 2022. In fact, I’d stay home alto­geth­er.  I wouldn’t be caught dead on a plane until I’ve been vac­ci­nat­ed. But again, that’s just me.

How­ev­er, just to whet your appetite, and to make sure that you DO come next year, I thought I’d show you some pic­tures from years past.

Enjoy.

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©2021,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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