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The day of Santa Coloma, every December 30, is celebrated in Centelles, in Osona, the Festa del Pi, which brings together typical and characteristic elements of Catalan traditions, from the butifarra, the barretina, to the blunderbuss, among others, such as we can see in the Photos of the Readers of La Vanguardia.
During the Festa del Pi, declared a Heritage Festival of National Interest in Catalonia, people go out into the forest to cut the most beautiful pine tree and then offer it, decorated, to the patron saint, Santa Coloma.
While going down from the forest to the town, to go to the church, it is accompanied by shots from blunderbusses and shotguns, with the trabucaires dressed in the traditional way with their barretina on their heads.
The first written information about the Festa del Pi is from 1751 and since then it has been linked to the festival of Santa Coloma, patron saint of Centelles.
According to the Centelles City Council, “ancient reminiscences of tree worship and pagan fertilization rituals related to the winter solstice and the regeneration of nature have been seen in this celebration.”
That is why it is assumed that the origin of this festival goes back much further than what the documentation reflects.
