Christmas seems to arrive earlier every year, and one small village in Malaga province has already switched on its festive lights while much of Spain is still enjoying October, preparing for Halloween and All Saints’ Day.

Cartaojal, a village belonging to the municipality of Antequera, switched on its Christmas lights on October 22, getting ahead of the famous displays in Vigo and leaving the rest of the country wondering whether it is too early to start thinking about Santa Claus.

The early switch-on prompted a cheeky message from Antequera’s mayor, Manolo Barón, who took the opportunity to tease Vigo and its mayor, Abel Caballero, over their annual Christmas lights rivalry.

His message was essentially that Christmas had started in Cartaojal, with an apology to Vigo for getting there first.

Cartaojal beats the Christmas rush

¡ Este año la Navidad empieza en Cartaojal !

La primera población de España en encender su alumbrado navideño.

Lo sentimos por Vigo y por su alcalde… 😉 pero este año Cartaojal se adelanta a todos.

🎄Cartaojal y Antequera.

¡ Los primeros de España en encender la Navidad ! https://t.co/vVPdwYIGj8

— Manolo Barón 🇪🇸 (@manolo_baron) October 22, 2026

The village, home to around 1,200 people, may not have the enormous displays or national fame of Vigo, but it has certainly grabbed attention by getting into the Christmas spirit before the end of October.

Vigo has become one of Spain’s best-known Christmas destinations, attracting visitors with its huge illuminated displays, festive attractions and increasingly elaborate annual switch-on ceremonies. Visitors can explore Vigo’s famous Christmas lights through the city’s official tourism website.

However, Cartaojal has now thrown down the gauntlet, at least unofficially, in the race to get Christmas underway. The village joins the race to switch on Spain’s Christmas lights, which has seen smaller Andalusian towns compete with the country’s better-known festive destinations.

For everyone in the area, the early lights offer a welcome splash of festive cheer as the autumn evenings draw in. For others, it may be a reminder that there are still several weeks to go before December 25.

Malaga prepares for Christmas

Cartaojal is not the only place already looking towards the festive season. Towns and cities across Spain are preparing their Christmas decorations, with Malaga city scheduled to switch on its famous lights on November 27, according to the city’s published plans. The official Malaga Christmas lights schedule lists the planned inauguration.

Vigo is also preparing for another major display, although its annual celebrations traditionally take place later in November. EWN readers can look back at Malaga’s famous Christmas lights to see how the Costa del Sol capital celebrated last year.

Whether people love the early arrival of Christmas or feel the decorations should wait until December, Cartaojal has certainly started the countdown ahead of schedule.

And with Halloween still to come, anyone hoping to enjoy a little more autumn before the festive season takes over may have to look away from the Christmas lights for a few more weeks.

It makes one wonder if they will remember it’s Christmas by the time the festive season is actually celebrated, or for that matter, if they will remember to take the decorations down before Carnival, like so many don’t.

Two rare Atlas lion cubs have been born at Selwo Aventura wildlife park in Estepona, giving conservationists fresh hope for a subspecies that has been extinct in the wild since the 1950s.

The cubs, born towards the end of summer, are the offspring of Ghizléne and Tayo, two lions brought to the Costa del Sol from European zoos as part of an international breeding programme.

Both cubs are reported to be in excellent health and weigh around eight kilos each. They have passed their first veterinary examinations, received identification microchips and been dewormed.

Rare Atlas lions born on the Costa del Sol

Their mother, Ghizléne, arrived at Selwo Aventura from Plzeň Zoo in the Czech Republic in spring 2025. Their father, Tayo, came from Hanover Zoo in Germany and has a pedigree recorded as 100 per cent Atlas lion.

The birth forms part of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP), which coordinates breeding between participating zoos to help preserve threatened animals and maintain genetic diversity.

During their first weeks, the cubs stayed in their enclosure under their mother’s care, with the park’s conservation team monitoring their development.

The young lions opened their eyes about a week after birth. Staff have also taken hair samples to establish their genetic profiles, an important step in registering them with the European breeding programme.

Could Atlas lions ever return to the wild?

Also known as Barbary lions, Atlas lions once lived across North Africa, particularly around the Atlas Mountains. Hunting and other human pressures contributed to their disappearance from the wild during the 20th century.

Their survival now depends on captive populations, including animals managed through breeding programmes in Europe and Morocco.

Selwo Aventura says the cubs are expected to take their first steps into the park’s outdoor meadow in the coming days, giving visitors an opportunity to watch them. Visitors can find further details about the park’s animal collection and conservation work.

Their mother is expected to continue nursing them until they are between seven and ten months old.

Although their birth is an encouraging development, any future return of Atlas lions to their original habitat would depend on further conservation work and suitable conditions in the wild.

Picture this. It is 7 a.m. before a major hearing and your case files refuse to open. The screen just blinks. For plenty of attorneys that scene stops being a bad dream and turns into a very real morning.

A legal practice runs on tight deadlines and court dates. It also runs on secrets that must stay secret. Technology promised to make all of that lighter. Too often it does the opposite.

Where legal work meets technology

The right managed IT services for law firms quietly guard confidential records while handing attorneys back the hours they would rather spend on actual cases. In plain terms this model moves technology work off a lawyer’s desk and onto a specialised partner.

What falls under that umbrella? Infrastructure sits there. So do cybersecurity and cloud services. Help desk support rounds it out. A dedicated team works in the background so nobody in the firm ever opens a server cabinet.

Compare it to hiring a locksmith for a whole building. Doors lock. Keys work. You never had to learn the trade yourself.

The headaches nobody warned you about

Lawyers touch sensitive client information by the hour. A single leaked file breaks trust that took years to build. It can invite real penalties too.

Old laptops freeze mid draft. Connections drop during trial prep. These little annoyances pile up until a whole afternoon vanishes.

The usual suspects look like this:

• Security holes that leave records open to breaches
• Downtime that stops billable work cold
• Growth that technology cannot keep up with
• Compliance rules tied to strict data protection laws

A partner built for regulated work

Eighteen years of IT work across regulated industries can sit behind a serious legal engagement. That is the kind of depth Andersen brings when it oversees infrastructure, applications, security and cloud operations through a dedicated team for law firms. Such experience matters most for practices leaning on specialised legal applications.

Case management lives in those tools. So does document handling. Client communication runs through them every day. When confidentiality carries legal weight this track record stops being a nice extra. It becomes the whole point.

When the filing cabinet moves to the cloud

Think back to the locked metal cabinet in the corner. One drawer held a career’s worth of paper. That era faded fast.

Attorneys now want case records in a courtroom. They want them at a kitchen table. They want them on a delayed train. A secure cloud environment lets attorneys reach case files and financial records from wherever they happen to stand.

There is a quieter benefit too. A flood no longer wipes out an entire archive. Neither does a fire. The files simply live somewhere safer than a shelf.

A guard that never clocks out

Cyber threats keep strange hours. So, the defence cannot nod off either. Watching systems around the clock catches trouble while it is still small.

Proactive protection shields sensitive client data from breaches. The aim stays blunt. Stop the intruder at the door, long before records are in danger.