Christmas in Jamaica is celebrated almost everywhere on the island. The residents celebrate it with such vigor and festivity that it attracts visitors incessantly every year.
During the Christmas season, most places in Jamaica are adorned with vibrant banners, colorful balloons, accordion-style bells, tinsel, traditional wreaths, and colored Christmas lights. The houses are adorned with the newest tablecloths and curtains. Families spend Christmas together in large gatherings and festive gatherings.
Restaurants and food venues are also memorable with the special foods and drinks served during the Christmas festivities. The unique flavor ackee with salted fish, sumptuous roast duck or chicken, spicy goat curry, delicious rice and peas, and mouthwatering stewed oxtail are some of the usual meals served on the island during Christmas. Additionally, these meals are mainly accompanied by delicious sorrel, Jamaica’s special Christmas drink made from cinnamon, rum, sorrel sepal, sugar, and orange peel.
The shops, especially the Great Market, are also full of joy of Christmas. All are characterized by an abundance of delicious food, Christmas crafts, energetic street dancing, and heavily accented offbeat Christmas music. Accessories, small things and various gift items are also sold in many market stalls. All are assembled with toys, balloons, firecrackers, cakes like graters, sweets like pinda and mint sticks. Fruit cakes made from mixed fruits, rum and wine are sold in almost every corner of the markets. People come dressed in fancy clothes, most in bright hats or costumes made exclusively for Christmas. They celebrate the party even until dawn.
The streets of Jamaica during Christmas are filled with joyful people dressed in funny masquerade costumes. This is the traditional Jamaican way of celebrating the holiday, also known as the Junkanoo. During Junkanoo, male revelers often wore huge masks adorned with markings, images, or ornaments of cow heads, horse heads, devils, wild Indians, and much more. The festivities are filled with the smell of traditional foods wafting through the air and not a day goes by without mysterious bands in giant costumes marching at cultural events.
Public places are adorned with elaborate Christmas decorations. They are packed with seemingly endless concerts and parties throughout the season. Despite the fact that its natives have never seen snow, Santa Claus, giving gifts and Christmas carols are very present during this time of year. Even the ever popular Christmas songs Silent Night and Holy Night can be heard everywhere on the island. Both are played in their classical and reggae versions, along with the other all-time favorite songs during Christmas.
Indeed, from the private homes to the streets and public places of this remote and secluded Caribbean island, Christmas is nothing but a dazzling experience. It is marked by joy and excitement; It is filled with non-stop banquets, celebrations, parties, special gifts, happy gatherings, entertainment, and colorful parades; And it’s never complete without Christmas decorations and Christmas reggae music. So, as the song Christmas in Jamaica says, Christmas on the island is nevertheless a perfect vacation.