A Glimpse of Traditional Barbados Christmas

I'm not from this beautiful island but I have many friends.  One of them, a lovely dark skinned lady in her forties, was kind enough to answer my questions one day last week.  We were standing in my kitchen chatting as I was making fudge.  She was asking about my Christmas traditions and as soon as I could, I turned the conversation to ask about hers.  What did the average Bajan do in her home.  What was a REAL Bajan Christmas like? She smiled that beautiful white smile of hers and began to draw a picture with her words.

Christmas preparations begin in April.  In every house there is a large glass jar, like a mayonaise jar only much bigger.  That jar is filled with fruit and then the fruit is covered with a mixture of liquors.  Rum is always the biggest part of it, but each family has their own combination.  Throughout the year, that jar in the refrigerator will be added to and turned in preparation of the day when the mother or granny of the house will bring it out and begin to make the Great Cake.  Great Cake is sometimes called Rum Cake but the stuff they sell in stores is not the same.  The real Great Cake is black and rich--more English pudding than American Cake.  No Bajan household would dream of having Christmas without a Great Cake.  Some pour rum on top after the cake is made and say it adds to the flavor, but a real cook relies on the sweetness of fermented fruit.

Besides the preparation of the Great Cake, Bajan mothers and grannies are frantically busy the week before Christmas.  They make coconut bread, banana bread, jub jub, breadfruit coo coo, peas and rice, and macaroni pie.  They have been saving money and now they buy a ham and a chicken and a turkey if they've had a very good year.  These meats are prepared and cooked on the day before Christmas Eve.  The tradition is that no one cooks from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day.  The holiday is a traveling party from house to house in the neighborhood.  Someone will say, "I'll come by you Christmas Eve and you come by me on Boxing Day." So each family will serve and be served, but if you are unable to host you would stil be invited to come.

Very few Bajan decorate the outside of their homes for Christmas.  Instead, they hang lights in their windows but they cover them with newspaper or curtains and don't turn them on until midnight on Christmas Eve.  Then, like a huge magician has said "Ta Da" the curtains and wrappings are pulled away from the lights and the neighborhood is ablaze with color and light.  No adults sleep on Christmas Eve. They pour from the houses into the streets and admire the lights like the special surprise packages that they are.  Somewhere, a voice will begin a carol and soon many voices join in.  Maybe it's "Oh Come Let Us Adore Him."  The voices blend with the chirping of tree frogs and someone brings his steel pan drum and begins to play along.

When 5am comes on the street, the people go back inside to dress for church in their finest Christmas clothes.  They go to church to worship the King and then return to open presents and perhaps catch a nap before they go to visit or recieve visitors. And that, my friend, is a Bajan Christmas.