El Jolgorio Navideño celebrates Christmas the Puerto Rican way

Yawu Miller

It started back in 1989 at the Howard Johnson’s on Memorial Drive. A group of committed Puerto Ricans came together to revive an island tradition in the cold north.

From the blending the traditional elements of Puerto Rican Christmas celebrations — music, food, dancing, rum and coke — the Jolgorio Nadieño was born.

The celebration has grown bigger with each passing year. Last year, when more than 1,600 people crowded into Mosely’s on the Charles, police had to turn would-be revelers away.

“It’s been getting big,” says Jaime Rodriguez, who founded the event. “But that unique feeling of Christmas is still there.”

The growth and success of the Jolgorio is a testament to the love many in the city’s Puerto Rican community have for their music and traditions as well as Rodriguez’s ability to put together a great party.

At this year’s event on Dec. 10 at Mosley’s on the Charles, five bands will play a mix of salsa, merengue and traditional Puerto Rican folk music that keeps the revelers on their feet on two separate dance floors.

From the beginning, Rodriguez used the event as a fundraiser for local organizations serving the Puerto Rican community. Now, under the leadership of new organizers, the event serves as a fundraiser for the Hispanic Writers in the Schools program, which brings prominent Latino writers to Boston for week-long workshops that last year introduced more than 12,000 students to the world of Latino literature.

“What we want to do is use the Jolgorio not just to celebrate, but also as a tool for learning,” says David Morales, the president of the Jolgorio of Massachusetts, the organization that now runs the event. “It’s become a tool for funding our programs.”

In addition to funding the writers’ workshops, the Jolgorio also helps fund the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project, which seeks to preserve the music and culture of the diminutive, ten-stringed guitars that are emblematic of Puerto Rican Jibaro music.

It is an endangered folk music that has been largely lost amid waves of external cultural influences and music styles, according to Morales.

“Every day we get bombarded by new media with new means of expression like reggaeton and bachata,” he said. “We think it’s important to look back at where we’ve come from.”

The Jolgorio, according to Morales, speaks to the Puerto Rican tradition of celebrating the Christmas holiday between Dec. 15 and the Jan. 6 day of the Three Kings.

In traditional Puerto Rican culture, the parties take place in people’s homes, where guests are fed and entertained.

“What Jaime did with the Jolgorio was to re-create that,” Morales said.

Grammy nominee Miguel Santiago Díaz and Ecos de Borinquen tops the list of entertainers for this year’s event, along with Puerto Rico’s National music ensemble, Grupo Mapeyé, as well as various local musicians that feature salsa dancing, merengue and bachata.

Dinner at this year’s Jolgorio will be served between 8 and 9 p.m. and will include a buffet of traditional Puerto Rican Christmas cuisine like pasteles (Puerto Rican tamales), arroz con gandules (rice and pigeon peas) and pernil (roast pork).

Rodriguez urges celebrants to show up early as the event may well reach capacity before 9:30.