Christmas in the Caribbean

Evenstar’s tiny but pretty tree.

The first holidays we are spending away from family hopefully will be the toughest – it should get easier from here on.  In throwing out a “traditional” American life style, one also risks losing the “traditions” around the times of the year that we treasure most with our families.

We’ve a lot of traditions, for example we always had a huge tree in our living room.  Really big, with a LOT of ornaments.  Well of course you can’t do that on a boat, in the Caribbean it is hard enough to find a live tree, never mind deal with the mess of needles everywhere.  And you have to store everything and storage space is a premium.  So out goes the humongous live tree decked out with hundreds of ornaments accumulated over several generations.  A select few of those came along with us, the rest are in long term storage.

Also the things you do…have to change.  Every Christmas Eve for years we went to my Uncle’s house, and then later to his son’s (my cousin…) where he hosted a get together for our family as well as his friends.  After that I’d take the kids home while Kathy went to midnight mass with my parents.  Obviously this has evolved over the years as we married and had children, and every year was just a little bit different.  But I’d stay home and put the children to bed, reading them ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (both the original and one of the silly Star Trek versions you can find on line which got a great laugh from the kids when they were younger).  Then I’d wrap the last presents, put the finishing touches on the house and preparations for dinner the next day, lay a fire in the fireplace for the next morning, then mix myself a drink and relax until the late night church goers came home.

Christmas day was always presents in the morning with the kids and grandparents, then dinner with my family later in the day, taking turns each year with my sister to see who would host (this year she got Thanksgiving and Christmas).  Traditional dinner, get out the china and silver and it didn’t change much, but with everyone getting a little older.

This year we re-write the traditions from scratch.  As I type this I know my cousin and his wife are cooking and preparing for tonight’s bash, my parents are getting dressed to go to my sister’s in-laws for their family get together before they drop by my cousin’s, and my grandfather is reclining with a drink and storing up his energy for tomorrow.  Here in the Caribbean we’re listening to Christmas music and getting ready to mix some drinks, listen to Christmas music and watch A Christmas Story later in the evening.  We put up our tree last night (which took a lot less time) and earlier in the week the boat was decorated with home made paper snowflakes.

The biggest Christmas display we’ve seen down here.

Christmas outside the U.S. is…different.  Maybe in Europe it is less so, but down here in the Virgin Islands there just isn’t the hype and noise.  We saw more Christmas hype in the states in November that we saw the week before Christmas down here.  Sure, Christmas is here and you know it is coming – you hear versions of traditional carols with a Caribbean or Reggae lilt and you see decorations.  But it’s without the in your face commercialism of the U.S.  Which is kind of nice, though you tend to not get the urgency of the season.  Partly I blame the palm trees – it’s tough to feel Christmas closing down on you when it’s 85 degrees and sunny and Santa is bracketed by palm trees.  But it’s not made into such a huge production, although you can tell that it is still and emotionally charged time that people are looking forward too.

On the other hand you don’t need the urgency.  It’s all scaled back.  We’re not entertaining much, and we’re not using the silver.  We’ve met up and rafted with some friends and will make a combined dinner tomorrow.  Gifts – well that’s scaled back for a lot of reasons.  First, you have to store everything so you want less, and you want it small.  Secondly being “retired” on a boat in our forties means the economic picture dictates more restraint.  Everything about the cruising lifestyle is about making more from less, and Christmas is no exception.  With less to buy, less to wrap, less to prepare, and less to do it takes up a whole lot less of the month of December.

Our children are having fun with it – today we visited “The Bubbles” which is a natural jacuzzi-like bowl that gets filled with frothy sea foam with you get large Northerly rolling seas.  Will noted that he’d never had to put on sunscreen on Christmas eve before.  Usually we are wearing shoes and coats too.  Being with friends who are in the same boat also helps.

Tomorrow we will talk to family by phone and maybe by Skype if the bandwidth is there.  We will miss them as much as they will miss us, and there may be a few tears after the calls end.  But we are still enjoying our holiday on our new adventure and we will be establishing our own new traditions.  We look forward to seeing how it will come out for us.

Well, it’s time to sign off and join the festivities.  I’d like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas, and the peace and love of the season to you all.