Every year, while cities like vigo boast of their light shows and countries like Venezuela either Portugal compete to light Christmas before anyone else, there is an Andalusian municipality that, discreetly, has been setting the real rhythm of that calendar for decades. Although few know it, this is where Christmas really begins. A light by chance. The story begins in Genil Bridgea town that, before becoming a global benchmark for festive lighting, already had an intimate and almost genetic relationship with electricity. At the end of the 19th century, its flour and electricity factory “La Alianza” turned on some of the first electric streetlights in Andalusia. From that early love affair with light would later arise a seemingly minor moment that would end up changing everything: an electrician named Francisco Jimenez Carmonaowner of a small appliance store, decided to build a wooden star with light bulbs to decorate his window one post-war Christmas Day. What could have been just a nice gesture of local commerce unleashed a collective fascination. The neighbors gathered, the City Council asked to illuminate entire streets, the nearby towns demanded the same, and without anyone being able to foresee it, a company had just been born that would end up illuminating half the planet. The birth of a giant. Decades later, that initial spark transformed into Iluminaciones Ximénez, today Ximenez Groupa group capable of designing and manufacturing lighting installations for more than 600 cities in 40 countriesfrom Madrid or Vigo to Dubai, passing through New York, Moscow, Sydney or Malabo. An expansion that maintains, however, a deeply artisanal root: all the lights are They manufacture in Puente Genilwhere every Christmas campaign more than 180 workers produce millions of LED points day and night that will then travel to the five continents. The company operates like a bright boutique that adapts each project to the culture of the destination, from the amber warmth of the Nordic countries to the explosive colors of Latin America, passing through the classic tones of the United States or the monochrome designs of some Spanish cities. To your catalog collaborations are added with renowned designers and projects as imposing as the largest Christmas tree in Europe or the tallest in Central America, or even giant tunnels in Moscow capable of transforming entire avenues into immersive scenarios. Puente Genil as a secret laboratory. Although the lights travel so far, everything always begins at home. Puente Genil has become a testing ground open, a space where the most risky and innovative proposals are experience before traveling to Vigo, Brussels or New York. La Matallana and Paseo del Romeral function as a technological gateway where new structures, lighting patterns, immersive tunnels and shows synchronized through pixel mapping appear every year, capable of converting entire streets into changing audiovisual surfaces. This 2025 the town will deploy about two million LED pointsa forest of illuminations that extends through villages, avenues, streetlights, squares and facades, accompanied by a cultural program of almost thirty events which turns the city into a first-rate Christmas epicenter. And more. But the hyperbole goes beyond the visual spectacle: Puente Genil, located between Seville, Córdoba, Málaga and Granada, preserves a unique industrial heritagefrom its old power plants to its modernist palaces, and a festive life that transcends even Christmas, with an Easter (the “Mananta”) so unique that it has rituals and processions impossible to find anywhere else. Economic impact. The success by Ximenez Group It not only lies in the ability to dazzle visually. Their projects have become real economic drivers for the cities that hire them: they attract tourism, increase sales, reactivate entire neighborhoods and generate local identity through decorations designed to dialogue with each culture. In Sydney they designed an interactive maze that changes color according to human movement, in Moscow they built an enchanted forest and a 200-meter tunnel, in Seville they synchronize Three Wise Men’s crowns with light and sound, in Vigo they deploy monumental digital trees, and in New York they provide engineering, design and pieces manufactured in Andalusia. The crux. The key, they countis in the fusion between tradition and avant-garde: a family business founded in a small store in Córdoba that today produces shows with its own low-consumption technology, advanced LED systems and intelligent motors capable of rescheduling shows in a matter of hours, as if the streets were gigantic living screens. Homemade star in global phenomenon. Despite driving more than 40 million euros annually and project a 50% growth In the next decade, the company continues to have the soul of a workshop and memory of origin. Three generations have given continuity to that first star burning wood in Puente Genil, transforming it into an industrial model combining craftsmanship, innovation and a deep understanding of what it means to illuminate as a business. Perhaps for this reason, Puente Genil is not only a global supplier: it is, in its essence, the place where Christmas is rehearse every year, where ideas are born that will later shine in giant cities like New York or Dubai, and where technology and tradition come together to demonstrate that some of the most universal stories begin, almost always, with a gesture as simple as turning on a light bulb… in a remote municipality in Andalusia. Image | Ximenez, Vigo Tourism In Xataka | The hidden cost of Christmas in Spain: how spending on lighting has overflowed in just a few years In Xataka | Abel Caballero had his enemy at his doorstep: Portugal’s plan to beat Vigo for Christmas
