Caribbean Matters: Caribbean holiday traditions, featuring Bad Bunny
Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. Hope you’ll join us here every Saturday. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
Holiday traditions in the States might include dreaming of snow to go with the mistletoe and Christmas trees, caroling, and kids waiting for Santa and reindeer to appear, the Caribbean has a host of holiday traditions that are different but just as joyous.
A favorite tradition for me are the parrandas navideñas in Puerto Rico. I’ve written about them in the past.
RELATED STORY: Caribbean Matters: Holiday celebrations take to the streets with parrandas, Junkanoo, and Gombeys
This year, parrandas are drawing international attention because the wildly popular musician Bad Bunny went viral after he joined the celebration this year.
What Are Parrandas Navideñas? Bad Bunny’s Festive Surprise Explained
Viral videos showed Benito himself showing up at people’s doors with a lively group of musicians
Picture this: Bad Bunny knocking on your door with a full holiday party behind him. Well, that’s exactly what happened to several lucky residents in Puerto Rico. Viral videos showed Benito himself showing up at people’s doors with a lively group of musicians, spreading holiday cheer and turning an ordinary night into something unforgettable.
But why was Bad Bunny doing this? He was taking part in a Parranda Navideña, a cherished Puerto Rican Christmas tradition where friends and neighbors visit each other’s homes, singing, playing music, and sharing holiday joy late into the night. This time, the tradition got a fun, celebrity twist.
YouTube channel Previews Urbano posted some of the event footage seen on social media.:
And a fan-operated Bad Bunny news account posted video taken from the other side of the door.
But just what is a Puerto Rican parranda? Teacher and YouTuber Elda Acevedo made a wonderfully informative 9-minute video discussing just how parrandas work. She even translates the songs that are traditionally sung.
From Acevedo’s YouTube video note:
Puerto Rican parrandas happen during the Christmas season. They are meant to be impromptu parties full of music, food and friends! Although each parranda is different, they usually have special songs for specific moments in the parranda and there's certainly an etiquette and rules to it. Find out more about one of my favorite Puerto Rican traditions! It might become your favorite too. ¡Feliz Navidad!
But Puerto Rico is not the only part of the Caribbean with parranda traditions. Betsayda Machado y La Parranda El Clavo are Afro-Venezuelans from El Clavo, a tiny town in the Caribbean basin. They have been traversing the globe, bringing their tradition to new audiences.
As the program notes from the 2017 Richmond Folk Festival explain:
Parranda is the sound of a huge Christmas party, with an entire village caroling in the street, serenading each house as they wind throughout town, accompanied by rhythms that are deeply entwined with Venezuela’s cacao plantations and the African slave trade.
It’s hot, earthy, raw and infectiously happy.
“Parranda is a synonym for ‘party,’” Betsayda said, speaking through her manager, Juan Souki. “Parranda is a Christmas genre and when you get involved in the singing of parranda, you become a parrandero.”Betsayda became a parrandera at a young age, taking up singing at Christmas Mass with her brothers at the age of 5. Her town, El Clavo, is a tiny village of fewer than 1,500 people and its centuries-old regional music genre had been almost completely unknown to the outside world until this year, when Betsayda Machado y La Parranda El Clavo hit the world scene.
In this charming video from 2017, the group introduces themselves and announces their first U.S. tour.
Fernando González wrote more about the group at Jazz With An Accent in 2020.
Betsayda Machado and Parranda El Clavo: Small Town, Powerful Music
“A Venezuelan who doesn’t think of himself as a parrandero is not Venezuelan,” says Machado, chuckling. “This is one of our cherished traditions. Venezuela has a calendar of holidays that might start on Christmas but goes nearly all year-round …
“We have a parranda in El Clavo every New Year’s Day. It leaves from my house,” she adds. “Now that parranda involves the whole town of El Clavo. The group that will be performing [in Doral] is just a small representation of the town’s parranda.”
In December 2022, German public broadcaster Deutche Welle Espaňol interviewed Machado—note, the interview is in Spanish with English subtitles.
Translated from DW Espaňol’s YouTube video notes:
Betsayda Machado was born to the rhythm of the party. Her story and that of the musical group she leads is a tribute to the Afro-Venezuelan roots and the joy of life of her people that not even the worst socio-political crisis can overshadow. Parranda El Clavo harvests international successes and transforms them into smiles, joy and solidarity with the people of his town.
December is a very special month for Betsayda Machado. In El Clavo, the town where she grew up, in north-central Venezuela, they celebrate the arrival of Christmas with the so-called “misas de gallo” or “aguinaldos”. At the age of five, she began singing with her older sisters: “On December 16 we would move to the church,” she recalls, to sing traditional Christmas songs. But in her town, music plays all year round: El Clavo is known for its parrandas. Since she was a child, Betsayda took part in these rhythmic and joyful expressions. Her exceptional voice led her to join renowned musical groups such as Vasallos del Sol, today, Vasallos de Venezuela. On international tours, as leader of La Parranda El Clavo, she has made the vibrant Afro-Venezuelan rhythms and the joy of her people known to audiences in other latitudes. But the parranda also allows her to thematize the pain she feels for the situation in her country. So Betsayda sings “Me dan ganas de llorar”.
Just like here in the States, the holiday season in the Caribbean is also a time for traditional foods. We’ve touched on some of the recipes in the past.
RELATED STORY: Caribbean Matters: Jerk chicken, callaloo, mofongo: Not everyone eats turkey on Thanksgiving
RELATED STORY: Caribbean Matters: Holiday eats and musical treats with sazón, spice, and everything nice
With that in mind, let’s explore a traditional holiday beverage—and we’re not talking about egg nog. Caribbean Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without sorrel.
As described by Island Routes:
A festive drink made by steeping hibiscus flowers, sorrel is a holiday favorite throughout the Caribbean. Making this burgundy treat is a Christmas tradition in many Caribbean countries including Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Guyana, St. Lucia, Grenada, Montserrat, Dominica, Antigua, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago. Variations of the drink have spread far and wide and different versions of the beverage can be found in various African countries and Mexico too, referred to as agua de Jamaica, Red Tea, Roselle, Red Drink, Bissap, Sudanese Tea, and more.
America has eggnog and hot toddy recipes around the holidays, while islanders prefer this customary beverage that is enjoyed many ways—spiked or sans alcohol; hot or cold; fresh or aged.
Sorrel is the Jamaican name for a type of hibiscus flower known as the Roselle. The dried sepals (the outer parts) of the hibiscus flower create a versatile and colorful red liquid when infused with hot water. The juice of the sepals is quite tart (like the taste of cranberries) on its own and that is why it’s mixed with sweeteners and other flavors. In the Caribbean, sorrel became a Christmastime tradition in part because the roselle hibiscus plant, in the past, was available only during that time of year. Today, the plant is cultivated year-round, but even still, sorrel-making remains a Christmas practice and the popular island drink is served at holiday family celebrations and gatherings most commonly
Culture writer Janel Martinez explores the beverage’s history for Serious Eats:
The History of Hibiscus Drinks in the African Diaspora
For many Afro-Diasporans, hibiscus drinks do more than nourish the body and raise the spirits: they invoke history.
When the transport of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic began in the early 1500s, livestock and plants like hibiscus also made the voyage. In "Seeds of Memory: Botanical Legacies of the African Diaspora," UCLA geography professor Judith Carney explains that the indigenous African foliage and plants served a dual purpose: they were meant to keep the animals alive, and having access to these familiar foods and medicinal plants increased the chances that enslaved people would survive the journey. As a byproduct, “In the early colonial period, plantation owners encountered many new plants growing in the food plots of their slaves,” writes Carney. “Many of these dietary staples are still known in the Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English languages by the place name ‘guinea,’ the name slave traders generally applied to the African continent.”
Thanks to tropical climates comparable to West Africa’s, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the American South became a new home for “guinea sorrel.” In addition to its medicinal and culinary applications, hibiscus and other transplants, like okra and kola nuts, likely served a greater purpose: "Having the same plant in the tropical Americas was a semblance of hope," says Michael W. Twitty, the culinary historian and author of The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South. “You reinforced your identity, you reinforced the things that made you happy, you reinforced memories of things that would otherwise be lost.”
In fact, food historian Adrian Miller has made the argument that hibiscus tea, in combination with kola nut tea, formed the basis for red drink—a reference to several red beverages, such as red flavored Kool-Aid, the soft drink Big Red, and old-school, carbonated red drinks—an iconic piece of African American culinary traditions that he refers to as "liquid soul." Like sorrel, red drink is often associated with celebrations, and records show its presence on US plantations during slavery and after Emancipation, as well as, more recently, Juneteenth.
Step into “Deddy’s Kitchen” for a “how-to” on making sorrel.
Ricky T’s “No Sorrel” is a lively lament for those who find themselves without the red libation.
While we here in the states are used to fireworks displays in the sky for major holiday events—especially New Year’s Eve—Curacao’s fireworks tradition burns a little lower.
The Landhuis Chobolobo website explains:
You could say that people on Curaçao are the world’s biggest fans of fireworks. Already since a young age, children go outside with their parents and friends to experience the many firework shows around the island. Perhaps the reason why people look so much forward to Christmas has to do precisely with the strict legislation around fireworks. According to law, all businesses that want to sell fireworks need a special permit (not so easy to get) and they're only allowed to sell them from the 27th till the 31st of December. That means that in all transparency with the law, locals are only allowed to buy and throw fireworks 5 days a year. Many establishments do follow the process to obtain this permit and there is a special Firework Show Schedule published each year which people follow religiously as each establishment competes to be the best show of the year.
One of the biggest fireworks shows takes place at the end of December at the Pietermaai District, where the streets are covered for hundreds of meters by a seemingly red carpet full of fireworks. These are known as “Pagara”. Besides the tremendous sound that wakes up even the heaviest of sleepers and the astonishing view of hundreds of fireworks exploding simultaneously, “Pagara” is especially important on Curaçao as it is believed to send away bad spirits.
A YouTube channel dedicated solely to fireworks festivals has Pagara footage—including the setup, the result, and the “red carpet” aftermath.
Pagara may chase away bad spirits, but it would chase me away too. Pass me a glass of sorrel instead.
Happy Holidays!