End of year celebrations in Martinique

In Martinique, we celebrate Christmas as in a lot of countries in the world. Christmas is a joyful family celebration happening at  the end of December and we celebrate  New Year too.

The month of December is  a very  busy month for the population in Martinique . There are a lot of events like baptism  or weddings . These events are very numerous in the current month of December, especially weddings . We think  that's the most wonderful period of the year. Baptisms are also celebrated because it's a  religious month with Christmas. Generally in Martinique, we are used to celebrating on Dec 24th and  25th.

Before Christmas and on that very day, we sing Christmas carols at home, in family gatherings or in parties with friends. You can click on the following link to read an article in French.

Tradition in Martinique 


The next video shows a 'biguine' (from the English verb 'begin'), one of our oldest traditional rhythms that was originally played in St-Pierre before the eruption of the Mount-Pelée volcano in 1902.

You will also have a look of some of our traditions.

At Christmas time, here is the food that we have longed for :

meat pies ( pork,cod fish,chicken);  families cook their own christmas smoked ham in the oven, some of them are very spicy. The favorite dish is composed of black or white pudding, pigeon peas (pois d'angole) with yellow yam  and pork stew; the dessert is a homemade coconut sherbet. For breakfast or tea on feast days, we usually have "Chocolat, pain au beurre " which is "brioche" and thickened hot cocoa flavored with vanilla and ground almonds.

Lindsay, Kelly,Mark, Yohan, Cyril, 1ère L Lva

Meat pies

Smoked ham cooked with pineapple and sugar on top

Pigeon peas, yam and stewed pork

Black pudding