A Green Christmas

This is our second Christmas season on the island.  The Christmas lights started appearing the evening of Independence Day (November 30th).  Now every store has traditional Christmas songs and their steel pan cousins tinkling out from the speakers.  Personally, I think "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" on steel drums is profoundly surreal.  But maybe that's just me. 

Along with scenes of the holy family, island Christmas cards might also have Santa in shorts on the beach downing a drink (rum or Banks) or the traditional coconuts in little santa hats.  Very festive.  Every year the yacht club here has a Christmas carnival complete with a sweating Santa in long pants handing out gifts to the children.  I think the humane society had some regulations about subjecting the reindeer to our temperatures.  At least that's what I overheard one mom telling her indignant 6 year old.  I think the red faced Santa was wishing that the humane society would put  in a word for him too or that Mrs. Claus would let him wear a Hawaiian shirt in red and green.

I had a devil of a time making christmas decorations last year.  We didn't bring any with us and we didn't want to buy a lot since we would have a weight/space limit when we do finally move. I thought of all of the homemade ornaments we made as children--salt dough ornaments, popcorn strings.  NIX!  We have no screens and birds fly in and out of the house  all day long picking up any unprotected food.  Everyone has little banana keepers to put over  the fruit or bread to keep it from being pecked into by opportunistic sparrows, brown doves and bananaquits.  So if I made anything even remotely edible, it would be--well--bird food.  We ended up making red and green paper chains and gluing together sealed candy canes with a hot glue gun to make hearts to hang on the tree. 

I wanted a nativity scene in our house.  I didn't really want to buy one so we ended up making Mary, Joseph, the three wise men and the angel from toilet paper rolls. We talked about the Christmas story while we colored and glued construction paper to the rolls.  Baby Jesus was a tiny little Duplo man, the shepherd was Noah from the baby's Little People Ark.  He kindly brought along a sheep and a cow from the Little People Farm.  Hey, I was desperate.

Even though the windchill was a brisk 80 degrees, I persevered.  Christmas is my favorite season, darn it and I refused to be denied.  Since my numerous holiday CD's had been left at home, I played Christmas music 24/7 on my laptop.  The kids love it although I think their favorite was "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas." That wasn't precisely what I was going for, but oh well.  I did teach them more traditional carols in music class and they sounded beautiful. 

Hanging the stockings was tricky.  You can imagine that our little condo doesn't have anything remotely resembling a mantle.  We do, however, have burglar bars so that we can leave the doors open to let the breeze in without inviting someone to come in and help themselves to our TV. So I tied the stockings to the burglar bars with festive red ribbon. 

Since neighborhoods don't generally do elaborate decorations, we didn't do our usual driving around admiring the lights.  We did have one neighbor who went all out and put light all around his door and on the shrub outside his front window.  We went and stood on his lawn and admired that for a while.  He also got a boom box and went from house to house with a crowd of neighborhood kids singing carols with a Caribbean Christmas CD.  "Little Drummer Boy" sounds very different sung to a reggae beat. 

We had to skip the Carols by Candlelight in front of the Prime Minister's house because our youngest was 12 months old and wouldn't have been very happy with late night or very safe with exposed candles.  I bought instant hot chocolate with marshmallows and we sat in front of the stand fan drinking it. I turned the speakers up and blasted "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear."

Despite my fears, Christmas morning dawned bright and the children rushed down the stairs in their bare feet and bright faces.  Shiny paper flew.  The cinnamon rolls I'd prepared the night before did  heat up the house a little, but we ate them with relish.  The shoe box covered in brown paper that served as a stable for our toilet paper nativity had blown over, but it was solemnly righted.  We had a wonderful Christmas morning.

This year, we'll be flying to join my mother -in -law at her cabin in Colorado.  The kids and I made more paper crafts and set up our tree just like last year.  We've listened to the Christmas carols and tied up the stocking--just to get us in the mood.  This year I'll be able to drink my hot cocoa under a blanket and we may even have a white Christmas--but some part of me will be thinking of the green Christmas of Barbados. I wonder if I can download the reggae version of "The Little Drummer Boy."