Christmas caroling groups still singing on Long Island
Carolers from the Puerto Rican Coalition for a Better Community sing at Wyandanch Plaza during the Annual Parranda Navidena Latin American holiday caroling event on Dec. 4. Credit: Rick Kopstein
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Holiday carolers!
No punchline needed to bring smiles to the faces of people who answer the knock of the Girl Scouts who will be strolling home-to-home in the village of Brightwaters Sunday evening on Dec. 18. Or when a cadre of Latino families bring the “Parranda Navideña with a Twist” to homes in Nassau County on Dec. 17.
WHERE TO HEAR CAROLERS
— Hear The Dickens Carolers at a free performance benefiting a food pantry at 6 p.m., Dec. 16, in front of the East Hampton Presbyterian Church on Main Street. A group of between six and 10 carolers dressed in Victorian style — top hats, hoop skirts, fingerless gloves — will encourage participants to sing along. A handbell choir service follows inside the church. The carolers ask for monetary donations or non perishable food items for the pantry, says Bonnie Grice of Sag Harbor, who founded the caroling group.
— The Girl Scouts of Nassau County Chorus sings at 1 p.m., Dec. 17, at Old Westbury Gardens. The chorus, made up of 10 girls, performs there for the first time since 2019.
— The Nassau County Parranda Navideña will begin at 11 a.m. in the parking lot of the Island Assisted Living Center in Hempstead, where carolers sign in and are given the addresses of the subsequent stops along a route that will continue to Valley Stream and Merrick. There is no cost to participate, but the organizers request a donation of a $25 gift card appropriate for a teenager, such as for a coffee shop, movie or fast-food restaurant.
Believe it or not, caroling is still alive for some groups on Long Island. Here are the stories of three, and where you can still hear carolers this season:
GIRL SCOUTS GO CAROLING
From left, Alexa Olvet, of Floral Park, 11, Gabrielle Jospa, of Plainview, 14, Emily Pulver, of Garden City, 14, Carly Connolly, of East Meadow, 14, and Isabella Roldan, of Hicksville, 15, members of The Girl Scouts of Nassau County Chorus, rehearse in Garden City on Nov. 30. Credit: Barry Sloan
Girls from 15 troops from the Brightwaters/Bay Shore area plan to sing door-to-door in Brightwaters. They will dress in Santa hats and light-up necklaces and wear their Girl Scout vests or sashes over their coats as they perform favorites like “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
That event is spearheaded by Joslynn Calixto, 13, and her friend and fellow Scout, Hannah DeNatalie, 14, with an assist from their mothers (who also happen to be troop leaders). The two girls had gone caroling outdoors last year informally with a few friends, which led them to bring a cadre of Scouts out with them this year to share the experience of bringing holiday cheer to the neighborhood with a simple knock on a door.
“The way that their faces lit up, it was just beautiful,” Calixto says of the people who answered their knocks last year. “I felt like it brought back that Christmas spirit we all love. When you know you do something good, you get this feeling inside; ‘Did I really just make someone’s day? I made someone’s night better?’”
DeNatalie says by expanding the caroling to younger girls in Daisy or Brownie troops this year, the older girls can be role models, “showing little kids you can be like us and help people in the neighborhood.”
'PARRANDA NAVIDEÑA WITH A TWIST' RETURNS
Carolers from the Puerto Rican Coalition for a Better Community sang to the residents of the Ross Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Brentwood during the Annual Parranda Navidena Latin American holiday caroling event. Resident Carmela Lamonaco, right, enjoys the music on Dec. 4. Credit: Rick Kopstein
Rosa Nieves has been singing with her family at the annual Parranda Navideña with a Twist for years — this year, the high school principal from Wantagh, 53, plans to attend the Nassau County event on Dec. 17 with her husband, Luis, 58, a tax analyst, and their children, Luis, 22, and Taina, 18. She also attended the Suffolk event on Dec. 4.
Last year, her family also “hosted” the carolers at their home, because Rosa’s mother, who is from Ecuador, and her mother-in-law, who is from Puerto Rico, remember the Parrandas from their youth. “They truly appreciated it because they did it back home in their countries,” Nieves says.
Long Island’s Parranda Navideña with a Twist has been happening each December since 2015 and more than 100 people participated on Dec. 4. It features Latino Christmas music sung, of course, in Spanish as well as English, along with musicians who play traditional instruments such as the Cuatro, a type of guitar, and more modern instruments, such as the tambourine, says Dorothy Santana, founder and president of Latina Moms Connect, which sponsors the events along with the Brentwood-based Puerto Rican Coalition for a Better Community.
Parranda Navideña translates to “Christmas Party” and the custom in the Latino countries involves carolers traveling home to home in the middle of the night, playing until the surprised homeowner wakes up and opens the door to invite them in to share food and drink, Santana says. Often those homeowners then join the procession.
The twist on Long Island is that the parranda is during the day. That's so children can participate and preserve Latino traditions that might otherwise be lost, says Candido Crespo, president of the Puerto Rican Coalition. “We want the kids to acknowledge the past, how people use to get together for caroling. We’re hoping that the next generation doesn’t forget about the tradition and the culture,” he says.
VILLAGE CAROLERS
Carolers donned Victorian garb — paupers or gentlemen — and wandered the streets of Port Jefferson Village during the annual Dickens Festival. In Sag Harbor, carolers walked from the Sag Harbor Historical Society to the village’s windmill for the annual tree lighting. And at Stony Brook Village Center, carolers entertained during the Black Friday Festival and the 43rd Annual Holiday Festival.
“We all parade down the street and sing our lungs out,” says Nancy French Achenbach, president of the Sag Harbor Historical Society, of her group’s event.
At the weekend-long Port Jefferson Dickens Festival in early December, carolers performed on street corners at designated times and visited various restaurants, says Karen Overin, coordinator of the festivals’ street characters.
Some of the carolers were professionals, but about 70 were volunteers who performed in groups of eight to 10 each, Overin says. The carolers sang old English tunes such as “Hail to Britannia” and “I Saw Three Ships” as well as “instantly recognized” carols such as “Deck the Halls” and “O Holy Night."
Overin says she enjoys caroling because of the camaraderie and because of the happiness it brings to listeners during the holiday season. “If you bring joy to someone in just a small way, you can make their whole week,” she says.
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
