Stanley and the Ten Sleepless Knights will again serenade across Christiansted Christmas Eve and Christmas Night, playing their unique version of standard Christmas carols for their annual “Foreday” Serenade.
St. Croix’s most famous quelbe band will ride to Christiansted Dec. 24 starting at midnight and Frederiksted, starting at midnight Dec. 25. Both start begin at the WTJX parking lot in Estate Richmond.
According to Bandleader Stanley Jacobs, his group has been participating in this tradition since they formed back in the 1970s, though he swears their name has nothing to do with the all-night tramp.
The serenade returned as a tradition in 2006, after a long hiatus of not performing. In 1992, the V.I. Police Department shut down the event due to a noise-ordinance violation; now, the police lead the procession, White said, to let the community know they are supported.
The Sleepless Knights continue on after losing two long-time members and local cultural legends in their own right, Sylvester “Blinky” McIntosh and Harold Johnson, Sr., late in 2017.
The neighborhoods of St. Croix will be alive with the sound of quelbe and Christmas music. The band will ride a massive flatbed truck, tricked out with a wall of speakers and a generator large enough run a house. Dozens of cars will follow behind as they travel from neighborhood to neighborhood. People will come out of their homes to dance in the street in the middle of the night, sharing guavaberry rum and other treats.
For those with the stamina to stay up, the serenade is a unique and joyous St. Croix experience not to be missed.
Source, Please don’t represent Christ with an “X”. It is Christmas, not Xmas