Puerto Rico is naturally endowed with a festive spirit, as likely to affect visitors as residents.

Every weekend seems a cause for celebration, witah islanders heading off to the beaches or the mountains, or to one of the many festivals or events that occur throughout the year.

All U.S. government holidays are celebrated in Puerto Rico. Additionally, there are nine local holidays, which usually honor important leaders or events in the island's history. Like the rest of Latin America,

Puerto Rico's Christmas season is long and exuberant, starting in early December and lasting until Three Kings Day on Jan. 6. Christmas trees are popular, and truckloads of them are imported from the United States and Canada.

The season combines delicious food, great music and festive merrymaking. Typical dishes are roast pig, seasoned rice with pigeon peas and pasteles, a kind of tamale made with meat and either plantain or yucca. Friends often form parrandas, a more rambunctious group than typical Christmas carolers. Lively music is sung —usually to bongo, guitar and güiro accompaniment —as the group goes to a friend's house, eats and drinks, and then moves on to the home of another friend. The cycle repeats itself, usually until the wee hours of the morning. Christmas Eve is a more solemn occasion spent at home with family. Children typically receive their gifts on Three Kings Day.

Each town also has an annual festival usually lasting a week to honor its patron saint. Originally religious in nature, the festivals are more secular today. There is one going on nearly every week of the year. There are also other holidays, sometimes called carnivals, that have been adopted from Catholic or pagan traditions. Special folk festivals, usually featuring a product important to the region, also take place.

One of the more famous celebrations is that honoring St. John the Baptist on June 23. Islanders take to the beach at night to picnic and party, often with barbecues blazing and salsa music blaring. At midnight, everyone walks backwards into the ocean to ensure good luck. The San Sebastián festival that takes place in mid-January is particularly lively, with artisans, music and local foods on hand. It's held on San Sebastián Street in Old San Juan, which is lined with bars and restaurants in which the revelry goes on late into the evening.