Contemplating spending Christmas in Goa? With a tropical climate during December, the premier beaches, a famous party culture, and a Christian population that celebrates the Christmas season with feasting and festivities, Goa should be high on your list of winter travel destinations. Here’s our guide to spending the festive period in Goa.
Why Christmas in Goa?
The smallest state draws big crowds during the Christmas-New Year period, who come for Goa’s unique take on the holidays, comprising a mix of balmy beach-going temperatures with traditional yuletide festivities.
Almost a third of all Goans identify themselves as Catholics, a legacy of more than four centuries of Portuguese rule, and Christianity is highly visible across the region – the extraordinary 17th-century churches and cathedrals at Old Goa are the largest in Asia and every town and village has its own whitewashed parish church.
Christmas celebrations begin in earnest around mid-December with carol singing, concerts, street decorations, illuminated village nativity scenes and Christmas markets. Groups of carol singers, often accompanied by a costumed Santa, roam about raising funds for the community, while colourful five-pointed stars made from paper stretched over a wooden frame are hung outside homes and businesses.
On Christmas Eve many Goan families gather for a traditional feast before attending Midnight Mass at their local church, while Christmas Day is reserved for family and the exchange of gifts at home. In the lead-up to New Year’s Eve, local children get together and make an effigy of an old man which is then torched on a bonfire at midnight, symbolising the end of the old year.
What about the food?
As elsewhere in the world, Christmas in Goa is a time for eating. During the Christmas holidays, you’ll find something for every festive appetite: from conventional roast turkey to sweet, Portuguese-influenced treats such as bebinca (a layer cake made from eggs, flour, coconut milk and butter) to Goa’s special Christmas dodol (a festive, toffee-like sweet), as well as all manner of curry (vindaloo originates from here!) and international staples.
Also Read: Festivals of the month: December 2019
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from
via Lonely Planet India
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