• About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • Unsubscribe
No Result
View All Result
Live and Invest Overseas
FREE REPORT
BEST PLACES TO RETIRE
*No spam: We will NEVER give your email address to anyone else.
  • HOME
  • COUNTRIES
    • Top Destinations
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • France
      • Colombia
      • Dominican Republic
      • Thailand
      • Mexico
      • Spain
      • Argentina
    • Browse All Countries
    • Best For
      • Retire Overseas Index
      • Health Care
      • Cost of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Editor’s Picks For Retirement
      • Establishing Residency
      • Starting an Online Business
      • Single Women
      • Playing Golf
  • BUDGETS
    • Super Cheap ($)
      • Cuenca, Ecuador
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand
      • The Philippines
      • Las Tablas, Panama
      • Granada, Nicaragua
    • Cheap ($$)
      • Algarve, Portugal
      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Carcassone, France
      • Buenos Aires, Argentina
    • Affordable ($$$)
      • Abruzzo, Italy
      • Barcelona, Spain
      • Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
      • Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
      • Costa de Oro, Uruguay
    • Luxury On A Budget ($$$$)
      • Ambergris Caye, Belize
      • Paris, France
      • Panama City Beach Area
  • Real Estate
  • ARCHIVES
    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore Diversification
    • Our Latest On Coronavirus ⚠️
  • Making Money
    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing
  • CONFERENCES
  • BOOKSTORE
Live and Invest Overseas
  • HOME
  • COUNTRIES
    • Top Destinations
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • France
      • Colombia
      • Dominican Republic
      • Thailand
      • Mexico
      • Spain
      • Argentina
    • Browse All Countries
    • Best For
      • Retire Overseas Index
      • Health Care
      • Cost of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Editor’s Picks For Retirement
      • Establishing Residency
      • Starting an Online Business
      • Single Women
      • Playing Golf
  • BUDGETS
    • Super Cheap ($)
      • Cuenca, Ecuador
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand
      • The Philippines
      • Las Tablas, Panama
      • Granada, Nicaragua
    • Cheap ($$)
      • Algarve, Portugal
      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Carcassone, France
      • Buenos Aires, Argentina
    • Affordable ($$$)
      • Abruzzo, Italy
      • Barcelona, Spain
      • Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
      • Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
      • Costa de Oro, Uruguay
    • Luxury On A Budget ($$$$)
      • Ambergris Caye, Belize
      • Paris, France
      • Panama City Beach Area
  • Real Estate
  • ARCHIVES
    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore Diversification
    • Our Latest On Coronavirus ⚠️
  • Making Money
    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing
  • CONFERENCES
  • BOOKSTORE
No Result
View All Result
Live and Invest Overseas
No Result
View All Result
Home In Focus: Panama

Tis’ Christmas Season In Panama City, Panama

Live And Invest Overseas by Live And Invest Overseas
Dec 20, 2016
in In Focus: Panama, Lifestyle, Panama
0
Christmas season in Panama City, Panama complete with a big Christmas tree full of yellow and red lights.
239
SHARES
3.4k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Counting Down To Christmas In Panama

If you grew up in the Northern Hemisphere, as I did, it’s difficult to get excited about the holiday season in the tropics.

As I write from my home office in Panama City, it’s sunny and warm (that is, hot and humid)… just like it always is. Nevertheless, I unpack the Christmas boxes and decorate the apartment as I have done every year, no matter where my family and I ring in the season… in Ireland, Paris, and now Panama.

Living an international lifestyle means making adjustments. Christmas in Panama has been one of them for us. With no intervening holidays like Halloween or Thanksgiving, the Christmas decorations come out in stores here in early September. If you don’t buy your Christmas paraphernalia in this country before the end of October, you may not be able to find what you want.

On the other hand, whatever’s left by November is on sale.

In Ireland, we went to a local tree farm each year to choose our Christmas tree, cut it down, and haul it home. In Paris, we bought our tree from the neighborhood florist. In Panama, we wait to hear that the shipment of fir trees (there’s only one) has finally cleared customs and head down to the local food wholesaler who clears out his enormous refrigerated room to take delivery of the hundreds of trees he ships in from Canada each year.

And we buy two of them, one for home and a second for the office.

Then we spend an evening with our multi-national employees—they who have moved to Panama from Finland and Russia, Canada and the United States, Jamaica and Venezuela, and beyond… coming from as far away as Taiwan to this little isthmus—drinking mulled wine, listening to Christmas carols, and dressing our business for the holidays.

Live and Invest Overseas 2016 Team

Our first Christmas in Panama City, eight years ago, we bought our tree from the Super 99 grocery store near our apartment. We chose it from among the 4- and 5-foot trees leaning against the front of the store, baking day after day in the hot sun, took it home, and watched as our little tree lost nearly all its needles well before the 25th rolled around.

Our second Christmas in Panama City, we asked for help. Where’s the best place to buy a tree in this city, we wondered of friends. A big, live tree…

We were directed to a shop called Tzanetatos, on Vía Brasil, a warehouse with pallets of hams, wine, olives, and other holiday fixings, and, in a giant refrigerated area, fresh Christmas trees, delivered direct from Canada.

Ah, this is more like it, we thought as we stood in the refrigerated unit in our short sleeves and sandals, shivering and rubbing our hands together for warmth. We chose the tallest tree they had, took it home, and enjoyed it through the New Year.

We’ve returned to this same spot for our tree every year since, remembering to wear sweaters. Some shoppers come dressed in snow parkas.

Celebrating Christmas down here in the tropics, we never have snow, but we do enjoy the scent of pine and fresh needles underfoot.

In past years, we’ve also enjoyed watching our son participate in his school Christmas pageant. The eight-and-a-half years we’ve been in Panama, Jackson has attended Panama City’s French school, l’École Paul Gauguin.

Our first year in Panama, Paul Gauguin’s Christmas pageant took place in the 300-year-old Teatro Anita Villalaz in the center of Casco Viejo’s Plaza de Francia. Even back then, when the student body was much smaller than it is today, it made for as eclectic a collection of small children as you might ever find.

Jackson introduced us to his friends from all over the world; some have names I couldn’t pronounce even after Jackson repeated them for me three or four times. Finally, embarrassed for me, he gave up, suggesting that, if I have something to say to a particular child, he’d be happy to relay the message for me.

Some of these children, then and now, have lived in three or four other countries already, though they’ve only barely begun their little lives. Most speak Spanish and French; others also speak English, Italian, German, Japanese, Chinese… They switch among languages effortlessly and manage to communicate among themselves cheerfully and with far less misunderstanding than you might expect…

As do many expats of every age in the multi-cultural melting pot that is Panama City.

That first Christmas, on stage in the grand old theater on Plaza Francia, the young-but-worldly bunch from École Paul Gauguin, Jackson among them, performed Christmas songs in Spanish, French, and English, including some we recognized and many we didn’t.

“Children in Palestine and children in Israel, children from the Americas and also from China, this day, let us think only of Christmas,” began one song in French.

Christmas isn’t the only holiday adjustment you make living in Panama…

Every country has its own independence day… or days. Panama has three, all bundled into November. These Fiestas Patrias are promptly followed by Mother’s Day on Dec. 8, meaning that you’re looking at a month of shortened work weeks in this country… followed by Christmas and New Year’s.

Add to that the law that dictates a Monday off if New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday, as it does for 2017, and Martyrs’ Day on Jan. 9, a national holiday to commemorate the deaths of student activists in the 60s, you’ve got about three months of very little work getting done.

We get better each year at not letting that reality bother us too much.

Kathleen Peddicord

 

Tags: 'Christmas In Panama'Christmas panamaChristmas trees panamaexpats panamafestivals panamaholidays in panamaholidays panamaliving panamapaul Gauguin French school panama
Share96Tweet60
Previous Post

The 10 Best Places To Live Overseas In 2017

Next Post

Celebrating The Festival Of Lights And Christmas In Medellin

Live And Invest Overseas

Live And Invest Overseas

Live and Invest Overseas is the world's savviest source for top opportunities to live better, retire in style, invest for profit, do business, and own real estate overseas. Established in 2008, the Live and Invest Overseas' editors and correspondents have more experience researching and reporting on top opportunities for living well, investing for profit, doing business, and owning real estate around the world than anyone else you'll find.

Related Posts

Exotic wooden huts on the water, Maldives
Colombia

How To Move Overseas Despite A Pandemic

by Sophia Titley
May 24, 2022
0

One of the biggest lessons of the past two-and-a-half years has been this: We all need to seize opportunities when...

Read more
Rocks in the water next to the sandy beach in Ecuador

The Best Places To Retire In Latina America

May 23, 2022
Family having fun outdoors on Mykonos streets

The Truth About Retiring And Living Abroad With Children

May 22, 2022
Tropical beach setting on Isla Holbox, Mexico

Why Living In Mexico Is An Easy Option For Expats

May 18, 2022
Caribbean Sea scenery in Playa del Carmen, Yucatan, Mexico

The Story Of A Canadian Living In Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

May 16, 2022
A view of the colorful buildings in Panama City, Panama during a sunny afternoon

This Apartment In Panama City, Panama Is Your Key To Residency

May 12, 2022
A small house in Cerro Punta, with bright green grass and blue skies

Tierras Altas: The New Expat Haven In Panama

May 10, 2022
Next Post
lots of christmas lights decorate the trees and surrounding area in Medellin

Celebrating The Festival Of Lights And Christmas In Medellin

A world full of fun, adventure, and profit awaits! Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and we'll send you a FREE report on the 10 Best Places To Retire In Style Overseas Today.

Start Your New Life Today, Overseas

Get Your Free Panama Report Today!

​​Simply enter your email address below and we'll send you our FREE REPORT - 101 Things You'll Wish Someone Had Told You About Panama.
 

LIOS Resources


  • New To LIOS
  • Ask An Expert
  • Media Center
  • Contact Us
  • FAQs

Quick Links


  • Best Places To Live
  • Best Places To Retire
  • Finding A Job Overseas
  • Real Estate

Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and get your FREE report: The 10 Best Places To Retire Overseas In 2022

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • Unsubscribe

© 2008-2021 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Countries
  • Budgets
  • Archives
  • News
  • Events
  • Bookstore
  • Newsletters
  • About Us
  • Members Area
  • Contact Us

© 2008-2021 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

The World’s Best Places To Be In 2022?

Discover Them Here…

WANT TO RETIRE OVERSEAS?

Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and we’ll immediately send you a free report on the 10 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE in style overseas. Each day you’ll learn about the best opportunities for international living, retiring overseas, offshore diversification and asset protection, and investing in real estate around the world.

Get Your Free Panama Report Today!
 

​​Learn more about ​​​PANAMA and other countries in our free, daily Overseas Opportunity Letter​​, as well as our ​In Focus: ​Panama ​newsletter​​​​​​. Simply enter your email address below and we’ll send you our FREE REPORT – ​​​101 Things You'll Wish Someone Had Told You About Panama.