Christmas Festivities in Boquete

The band has a standing date to play every Sunday evening at the Boquete Brewing Company. When we arrived last Sunday, we didn’t realize there was a Christmas parade planned for that evening. We were told to go ahead and play. The 6pm (also our start time) parade wasn’t expected to start on time and sure enough, we played for over an hour before the first of the parade passed by.

The brewery is on the main street, and we play on the terrace. My spot is by the outside railing next to the street, so it was a perfect place to watch the parade. I took some videos and planned to stich them together, but you can no longer do that on YouTube. I downloaded iMovie where I managed to make that happen, but I didn’t have enough space to save it. So, I deleted videos thinking I could easily download them again from YouTube. You need a paid subscription to do that… 🙄 So long story short I have these clips to share and if you want to see more, the other clips are on my YouTube channel.

Find your headphones and turn up your sound if you want anything close to the full effect. Those bass drums are loud, and they drum with much enthusiasm. It was really fun to see the whole parade. There were floats, lights, music, bubbles, candy being tossed into the crowd, and lots of people out enjoying the evening.

Then, after the parade was finished, we went back to playing. There were still many people in the street, the brewery was full, people were in a party mood, and it was a fantastic evening. You can hear people singing along and cheering between songs. I wish I had a different video setup so you could see the crowd but since I’m busy playing, an iPad on a stand next to me is about as fancy as it gets. This is our second set after the parade. If you want to hear more, there are more videos on my channel.

Sometimes you don’t know when a really good time is right around the corner! Christmas in general is fun here. It’s warm summer weather without rain, so people are free to go out in the evenings without getting wet. There are lots of beautiful light displays, and shopping is a big thing so don’t go to the stores in December if you can avoid it. The height of the celebration is Christmas eve. People gather for parties, music, happiness, and lots and lots of fireworks climaxing at midnight. Then, people go indoors for a dinner of traditional food, presents, and greetings by phone for anyone not present. Christmas day is quiet because everyone is recovering from all the partying the night before. New Years is very much the same with festivities climaxing at midnight.

Since Christmas and New Years fall on Sunday this year, the brewery is closed and we are on break. We’ll relax and do things at home, and there’s always a list of new songs we want to learn.

If you are local, there is a big benefit event coming up on Saturday, January 7th. Come out and enjoy music, food, friends, and help support the foundation that cares for needy dogs and cats in the area. (we are the opening band, and start at 2pm)

Then, starting Sunday January 8th we’ll be back to our usual Sunday evening gigs.

Happy Holidays, and good luck to you all in the USA. Your weather predictions sound really bad. Stay warm and safe!!