For anyone, the stress of Christmas begins the week before Christmas Eve; For Cristina Pedroche, the nerves, non-stop and anxiety start many months before: the day she has to start preparing for the big night of the year, her big night, the Chimes.
The presenter is fully aware of the impact and interest that her outfit and her speech generate every New Year’s Eve. Therefore, it is inevitable for her that, even though this year she has completed a whole decade as one of the undisputed queen of the Chimes, her heart rate will skyrocket like the first time.
They say that experience is a degree, but for Cristina Pedroche, no. She continues to transform into the same flan that she did 10 years ago, she continues to demand the same 200% that she did the first time and she continues to want to give the best Campanadas than the previous year.
Will she manage to be the queen of the New Year’s Eve audience again this year for the third time in a row? She knows it’s “difficult”, but she doesn’t give the Chimes for the share. It’s just that she doesn’t even look at him.
This is La Pedroche. She is not interested in knowing how many people have watched the Chimes with her or whether Antena 3 has been the most watched channel or not of the television event with the most audience of the year. Even so, days before the big night she is invaded by nightmares typical of imposter syndrome. It’s always the same: «The dress doesn’t arrive on time. And there is no plan B.
Days before I always have the same nightmare: the dress doesn’t arrive and there is no plan B
“It seems like it was yesterday when I was asked to give the Chimes the first year… And here I am once again… Ten years later I still feel the same pride, enthusiasm and joy as the first time,” the presenter acknowledges in her only interview with a written media before their appointment at Puerta del Sol. «It’s something I had never dreamed of. Much better than a dream. Every year I propose that it has to be the best and I am sure that this year we will achieve it.
Pedroche has a great responsibility: Antena 3 has turned this event into a television event that grows year after year. In 2022, the Happy 2023! program was watched at one point by more than 10.5 million unique viewers and achieved the lead for the second year in a row. The exact minute of drinking the grapes with La Pedroche and Alberto Chicote brought together 6.6 million viewers and a 39% share: the most watched option of the night and a new historical record for the channel.
Cristina Pedroche and Alberto Chicote, who repeated one more year on a balcony in Puerta del Sol, increased their competitiveness and surpassed RTVE by almost 13 points and 2.2 million viewers. This year, with public television aware of the power of La Pedroche, RTVE has redoubled its bet with Ramón García, Ana Mena and Jennifer Hermoso, a trio of aces. And all to beat her and hers dressed as her.
Pedroche knows it, he is aware that the best kept secret for a decade is his dress. That’s why he plays it year after year with a single card. This year too. She has visited her manicurist, she has been preparing her stunning look for weeks, which she has once again put in the hands of her great friend Josie and, on top of that, she has been warming up the networks with nudes on the branch of a tree, floating on a lake in American mode Beauty or running desperately and how God brought her into the world throughout the center of Madrid. Because, although she has repeated it until her saliva has run out, preparing the Chimes is not a here I catch you here I kill you. There is a lot of work behind it and this time again, it is the year in which she has been a mother: “And my priorities have changed.”
Yes, her life has changed, but there is something in which La Pedroche remains La Pedroche: her sincerity. For a few years now, her Chimes dress has had as much impact as the speech she gives to millions of viewers. Five months ago she gave birth to her baby and from the first moment she shared the details of the process she is experiencing. Of course, she has more and more reservations, because she knows that not everyone receives information in the same way. «I’m just with my daughter. “I took it 15 days before to get my head around everything and I’m coming out little by little, I’m forcing myself,” she confessed the day she returned to television. With the Chimes she has not needed anyone to push or force her and this year much less.
When she talks about her daughter, like any mother, her face lights up. She herself admits that it is not an easy process, that the changes are not easy, that motherhood awakens feelings that are sometimes very difficult to control. That is why, perhaps, it is even more surprising that the “queen of the Bells” has never hesitated to put on a costume that will surely generate thousands of criticisms – like every year -. And for the presenter, the Chimes are a kind of catharsis, a need, a platonic love. Because Pedroche takes the criticism to task. As it is.
Let’s make pools: will it have a lot of fabric or a little? “It’s very obvious that Josie and I shy away from the fabric a bit, it’s not a dress as such, in recent years it’s been that way.” Will it have any elements from nature such as leaves, plants or similar? Her spot suggests yes. Will there be any nod to her motherhood or her daughter? There are many doubts that she does not want to reveal. Will it please the brother-in-law on duty or will it generate an anxious debate at New Year’s Eve dinner? To this last question the answer is clear: yes.
Cristina Pedroche knows perfectly well what role she has been given and has chosen to play on the last night of the year, but above all what role is given to her in each house on New Year’s Eve and also on New Year’s Eve. Since that first year in which she accompanied Dani Mateo at the Campanadas de laSexta with that transparent black dress, Ella Pedroche has become another member of the last dinner and the first meal of the year. That’s why, since then, since she got involved, La Pedroche completely disconnects from all the noise that is generated around her for her health and for the health of her loved ones. In fact, although many believe otherwise, Pedroche is not going to take her daughter to the Campanadas: “If she were selfish I would take her because I would be calmer, but she is better off at home with my mother.”