While many lakeside residents will welcome the start of 2025 at private parties or various local restaurants, there will also be public festivities on December 31 and January 1 for holiday entertainment in Chapala and Ajijic.
The Chapala government is hosting a customary New Year’s Eve celebration on Tuesday, December 31, starting at 8 p.m. with a video mapping display and artificial snowstorm in front of City Hall.
A traditional Año Nuevo party follows at the waterfront Malecón. Party-goers can set up their own tables and chairs along the boardwalk and bring whatever food and drinks they wish to consume. Expect musical entertainment throughout the evening and a glittering fireworks display lighting up the sky from the foot of the town pier at midnight. Simultaneous pyrotechnic spectacles from other lakeshore localities will also be visible from that point.
Residents of Ajijic are invited to watch a Ballet Folklórico show on the esplanade outside the plaza’s Centro Cultural on December 31, starting at 6 p.m.
The town ushers in the New Year per long-standing tradition with the madcap Tecoluta Bowl Año Nuevo parade, aimed at generating good spirits to persist for the next 12 months.
Rival neighborhood teams from Calles Francisco Villa and Alvaro Obregon meet in secret for weeks in advance to plan whimsical themes for their respective floats and marching contingents, vying to amuse spectators with hand-crafted decorative details, colorful costumes and light-hearted antics.
The parade queues up at Seis Esquinas for a loosely set 1 p.m. kickoff, meaning it starts once everyone is ready to roll. The parade proceeds east along Ocampo, snakes through the center of town, and finally loops back to the starting point. From there, the jolly crowd heads off to the waterfront Tecoluta soccer field for an afternoon of convivial matches to renew bonds of friendship and community goodwill.