Barbados Christmas

The first sign of Christmas this year were the decorated roundabouts that we started seeing all over the country around the time of Independence Day (3o December): palm trees with Christmas lights in all colours and little wooden decorations, such as shapes of pine trees and signs wishing drivers a Merry Christmas.

But with temperatures still around 30 degrees, it really only started feeling like Christmas when I arrived at the Barbados airport having returned from a work trip in early December. Dozens of trees decorated the departure and arrival areas – one for every Commonwealth country! The Barbados Commonwealth Society has apparently placed more than 170 Christmas trees all over the island (50 more than last year), some of which were decorated with the help of local schools.

Many Christmas trees on the island are made of plastic. Pine trees do not exactly grow in abundance here. Some people buy imported trees, but this year people were worried they might not be able to buy a real tree even if they wanted to because of delays at the port. But it all worked out in the end. We even spotted some 2-3m/6-9’-tall trees at a garden center on the West coast along with hundreds of poinsettias (“Christmas stars” – some of these even grow in people’s gardens here). And soon enough you would see those willing to spend hundreds of Barbadian dollars on a real tree driving it home on the back of their pickup truck.

To get us in the Christmas mood, we decided to drive to a local Providence (private) school Christmas market, where students sell arts and crafts, plants, food and drinks one weekend a year. We even found a driftwood Christmas tree! Another nice market is the Limegrove Christmas Craft Fair (this year on 7 Dec. – of course, we met fellow Germans and other expats there looking for something Christmassy to do!). Then we went home to decorate our apartment, and got creative using palm instead of fir branches and homemade decorations (i.e. wires to form the letters of “Merry Xmas”, cutout paper snowflakes for the chandelier and garlands made of Christmas crackers tied together).

We both went home for Christmas, but we heard from co-workers that Christmas Eve is very quiet here. Most people go to mass in the late afternoon or around midnight, and there is a celebration at Queen’s Park in Bridgetown on Christmas Day. Favourite dishes are the Bajan Black Cake (originating from British Black Pudding, but with rum added), Christmas ham or sorrel juice. And new traditions are emerging: Bajans apparently increasingly enjoy going out for Christmas lunch, as many hotels this year reported they were booked up for lunch. Another interesting tradition is a form of “spring-cleaning” that occurs here around Christmas, which sometimes results in mountains of thrown-out furniture and garbage in the streets.

A particularly special sight is the large number of decorated Christmas trees lighting up the centre of Bridgetown. We drove up there just to take this photo for you!

Up next:

Old Year’s Night & (Catamaran) Cruising into 2020