Celebrate Christmas and New Year's Eve like Panamanians
Celebrating the holidays in Panama is particularly festive. Culture Trip has collected these exclusive tidbits to give you a step-by-step guide on how to eat well, drink, and be happy, giving you your own Panamanian style Feliz Navidad and Próspero Año Nuevo (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year).
Eat well
Turkey is the staple dish on the Panamanian Christmas table, although the food here is carefully prepared. Locals skip fillings and gravies and replace these flavors with their own Latin spices. The combination of the turkey's own forced refined chopped and chopped vegetables makes them taste strong when sliced and poured over the turkey.
Drink it up
Known to the locals, Eggnog was upgraded a notch to ron ponche. This rum is joined with eggnog is a Panamanian tradition. Supermarkets also stock a non-alcoholic version, ponche de huevo, as holidays are close to child-friendly alternatives (the best brands are Bonlac, Borden and Estrella). For adults ponche, brands like Minita and Gourmet will be your first choice.
Happy
With the abundance of festive food and drink, perhaps the most important ingredient of the season is the joy of the Panamanian people. In the first month of the celebration in November, starting with Flag Day on November 4 and ending on Independence Day on November 28, everything was happy and bright. Once December fell, Christmas carols exploded and the state began laying in the halls.
The spirit of Christmas is a force to be reckoned with, as the nativity scenes created larger than life and quickly become roadside displays of reflection and affection. A residence in the city of David in Chiriqui, west of Panama, boasts the most famous Nativity scene, named A Pesebre in Panama. More than 5,000 works occupy 130 meters of scenery, attracting a large number of curious locals and travelers for more than two decades.
More traditional holiday activities can be found around Panama City, from carols and holiday concerts to skating around the huge decorated Christmas tree inside One of the city's mega shopping malls, Metroll.
With the end of Christmas and the frontier and center of the New Year, Panamanians burn incense, prepare special bathrooms, and clean their homes to ensure the richness and blessings of the coming year. These superstitious practices include several rituals: Panamanians will hold actual money to secure the new year's wealth, wear yellow underwear for pleasure and get rid of troubles, or turn a suitcase around the house (even if it's empty) to bring travel and adventure. Finally, 12 grapes were eaten at midnight. There is a wish for each bite, and then all the seeds are counted. The total number of seeds will be the person's lucky number for the coming year.
The New Year celebrations will continue until January 6, the Three National Day, which is a traditional celebration in Panama, as well as in Mexico, Spain, Peru and Puerto Rico. On this day, the children waited for gifts from the three wise men, who had brought their shoes from the outside the night before.
On the same day, Panamanians burn their Christmas trees and host the end of the holiday. But as a reason to celebrate, another is just around the corner. Next: Carnival.
