Christmas in Curacao
Here is what the season actually looks like: the traditions islanders keep, the markets and events that fill December, and why the last week of the year is the loudest of all.
How Curaçao celebrates
The heart of the season is Noche Buena, Christmas Eve, when families gather for a long evening of food and music. The dish everyone waits for is ayaka: seasoned meat, olives, raisins and vegetables folded into cornmeal, wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed. Making them is a whole-family production that begins days in advance, and no two households do it quite the same way.
The other fixture is Ham di Pasku, a Christmas ham cured and glazed with island spices, which appears everywhere from home tables to restaurant menus through the end of December. Many kitchens across the island run a special holiday menu for the last two weeks of the year.
At midnight on Christmas Eve the Fortkerk in Punda holds its midnight mass, and the historic centre fills up around it. Visitors are welcome, and it is worth the late night even if you are not religious.
At Bayside Boutique Hotel we cook our own Noche Buena menu for all ages. Keep an eye on our socials for this year’s menu.
Christmas fairs and markets
From late November onwards there is a Christmas fair somewhere on the island almost every weekend. They follow a recognisable shape: stalls of handmade gifts and decorations, local food and drink, live music, and enough fairy lights to make tropical heat feel seasonal. Most are free to walk into, and most run into the evening, because that is when it cools down.
The ones worth planning around are the fair in Pietermaai, where the Nieuwestraat closes to traffic for the night; the weekend fair in the cobbled courtyards of Kurá Hulanda Village in Otrobanda; and the Christmas edition of the monthly local market at Landhuis Daniel. Dates for this season are in the next section.
Christmas at Blue Bay
Through December, Blue Bay Curaçao Golf & Beach Resort turns festive: lights strung through the palms, Christmas films on a screen under the stars, a run across the grounds, festive aquarobics, campfire evenings on the beach, and holiday menus at the restaurants. New Year’s Eve is celebrated on the sand.
Our own Bayside Restaurant runs a holiday menu, and we put live music on the patio. Rooms at Bayside book up early for this season, because December is the island’s busiest month.
Christmas events, December 2026
Confirmed so far:
- Christmas Fair at Kurá Hulanda Village — Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 December, Otrobanda. Two evenings of lights, live music, a brass band and market stalls in the village courtyards. Free entry.
These return every year. Organisers usually publish their dates from mid-November:
- Christmas Craft Fair by Night — a Saturday in the second half of November, organised by Landhuis Bloemhof. Over sixty stalls of handmade work, decorations and food.
- Christmas Fair Pietermaai — a Saturday evening in early December. The Nieuwestraat closes to traffic and fills with stalls, food, drinks and live music until late.
- Christmas market at Landhuis Daniel — traditionally the second Sunday of December, 10am to 2pm. The festive edition of the monthly Marshe Lokal, with local products, handmade gifts and live music.
- Curaçao Santa Run — the Saturday evening before Christmas. A parade and a 5km run from Rif Fort through Otrobanda and Punda, everyone in a Santa suit, finishing at an afterparty on Mambo Beach. Proceeds go to local families.
- Punda Christmas tree lighting — an evening in late November, when the big tree in the city centre is switched on.
- Christmas light route, Grandhil and Seru Loraweg — a December evening when whole streets decorate their houses and open them to visitors driving through.
We update this list as organisers confirm their dates.
New Year’s Eve: the loudest day of the year
From 26 December onwards the island starts letting off pagaras — long red ribbons of firecrackers, hung from a balcony or laid down the length of a street and lit from one end. They are meant to drive the bad of the old year out of the house, and they are genuinely, magnificently loud.
The famous one runs through Pietermaai on the afternoon of 31 December: a pagara of well over a kilometre, from Scuba Lodge down to Café de Tijd, with the whole street watching. Closer to midnight, many households burn incense through every room for the same reason — out with the old.
Then Curaçao does midnight twice. Because the island is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a good number of beach clubs and restaurants set off fireworks at 7pm, which is midnight in the Netherlands, and again at midnight local time. Blue Bay does both, right next to the hotel. In town, Brionplein in Otrobanda is the traditional public gathering place, with live music and a midnight where everyone congratulates everyone.
The New Year’s Dive
On 1 January at noon, thousands of people in orange woollen hats run into the Caribbean Sea at Zanzibar on Jan Thiel. It is the Dutch nieuwjaarsduik transplanted into 26°C water, which removes the entire point of it and somehow makes it better. Afterwards there is pea soup and smoked sausage, served in full sun, and DJs into the afternoon.
It is free, the beach starts filling from around nine in the morning, and the dive itself is at twelve sharp. Blue Bay Beach beside the hotel has its own smaller version if you would rather not drive.
Spending the season with us
Christmas in Curaçao is a season you spend outdoors: at a market in the evening, at a table that runs long, on a beach at midnight with fireworks going off twice. Bayside Boutique Hotel sits right beside Blue Bay Beach, which puts you within walking distance of most of it.
December is the busiest month on the island, so book flights and rooms early. Our front desk is happy to help you plan the trip.
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