GRAND MARKET RESET
Hurricane Melissa challenges Jamaicans to reclaim the heart of festive tradition, says Blackwood Meeks
Published:Wednesday | December 24, 2025 | 12:12 AMSashana Small/Staff Reporter
While the centuries-old Christmas tradition of Grand Market has evolved over time, this year’s observance may offer a return to the true spirit of the Yuletide season, argues cultural architect and educator Dr Amina Blackwood Meeks.
She asserted that this year’s staging of Grand Market serves as a poignant reminder of Jamaicans’ collective responsibility to care for one another in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.
“Hurricane Melissa has made that very clear. There are people who can’t even go to market, much more to go to Grand Market, and therefore, what is our responsibility to those who have been debilitated? Where is the love? Where is the caring? Where is the sharing, and the giving?” she asked.
Lamenting the devastation caused by the Category 5 storm, particularly in the island’s southwestern parishes, Blackwood Meeks said the damage will undoubtedly affect how Grand Market is experienced in those communities.
IMPACTS OF MELISSA
The jubilant Christmas spirit that typically defines the celebration across Jamaica has been noticeably subdued for many residents directly impacted by the hurricane, which tore through the island on October 28.
About 360,000 people and 90,000 households were directly impacted by the storm. The hurricane damaged nearly 156,000 homes, 24,000 of which were total losses, and caused an estimated US$8.8 billion in physical damage.
The most powerful storm in Jamaica’s history also triggered widespread power outages. Up to a week ago, 88 per cent of Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) customers in Westmoreland remained without electricity. In St Elizabeth, 50 per cent were still without power, St James, 45 per cent; Trelawny, 39 per cent; and Hanover 36 per cent.
Islandwide, the JPS has restored service to more than 84 per cent of its customers.
“I am looking at a whole change in Grand Market as a result of what Hurricane Melissa has done to the west,” Blackwood Meeks told The Gleaner.
Grand Market evolved from enslaved people using their limited freedom to sell surplus goods in the Sunday Market to a vibrant nationwide street festival.
Every December 24, towns and cities in Jamaica are transformed as vendors are given special permission to peddle their wares in otherwise unauthorised zones. Shoppers are spoilt for choice, as a variety of items, some not seen during the rest of the year, are laid out on tarpaulins, and stalls, vying for their attention.
Music blasts in the streets, and seasonal provisions like sorrel and gungo peas are in abundance. The vibrant scene is further enlivened by Christmas lights and decorations hanging from and in the windows of stores, advertising special deals and sales.
“Grand Market is both a joy and a tribute to our inventiveness, our determination, our innovation, as it is a remembrance of those brutal days on the plantation,” Blackwood Meeks stated.
She said some people would make it a family affair as they shop for necessities and gifts, with the Brown’s Town Grand Market in St Ann reputed to be among the best.
However, not all parents were eager to navigate the crowds with young children in tow.
“There are people who never carried the children. Dem draw dem foot pon a piece of paper and carry wherever the market was being held and fit the shoes to the drawing. Like my mother now, when she come back and the shoes nuh fit, she nuh carry wi, y’know. She go back with the likkle piece a paper,” she recalled with amusement.
For others, it was an economic necessity, as many people did not get paid until the day before Christmas, and it was their last opportunity to get some shopping done before the much calmer Christmas Day.
“But it was a great festivity and people looked forward to meeting one another at the Grand Market. To see yuh sorrel, yuh yellow yam, yuh gungo, all of those things which are seasonal around Christmas time,” she said.
However, the effects of Hurricane Melissa may not be the only factors to dampen Grand Market this year, as the explosion of e-commerce has also been contributing to a declining interest in the tradition, Blackwood Meeks stated.
“The shopping online, the whole Internet, and what it has made available to us as changed so many of our Christmas traditions, our cultural traditions in general,” she said.
But she noted that this rapid growth of online shopping also presents an opportunity for Jamaicans to embrace our culture while sharing it with the world.
“What we have is valuable, and we need to protect it, and, again, Hurricane Melissa has made that absolutely clear. I know we see the material help that has been coming to Jamaica but, for me, it’s beyond the material. That is just love and gratitude being poured into Jamaica by the international community because of what Jamaica and Jamaicans have stood for,” she said.