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A Glimpse Of Bajan Christmas

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In Barbados Christmas is a time for family. The major town centers are all lit up and people drive around to admire each others decorations. It's also a time for food and parties, with popular dishes on all menus. Late night shopping in Bridgetown begins and everywhere people are painting and cleaning their homes. The thing is we try to be patriotic and wait till December 1, since our Independence Day is November 30th, but the stores put up their Christmas decorations mid-November, and carols begin playing around that time too, so you can never begin sprucing up your home early enough.

On Christmas day, Barbados has a Day of Feasting, complete most or all of these favorites:

• Dinner:
  Baked Ham, Rice and Green Peas, Baked Chicken, Macaroni pie, Jug-jug, Roast turkey with its stuffing with gravy, Roast pork with crackling and gravy, Flying fish & Cou Cou (Barbados's National Dish) Pepperpot (very spicy dish made with various sliced meats), candied sweet potatoes, Fried Plantain and Conkies (also know as stew dumplings)


• Desert:
  Great cake, Yam pie, Cassava pone, Coconut bread, Banana bread, Plum Pudding and other desserts.


• To Drink:
  Sorrel, Homemade egg-nog with a liquor (usually rum), Rum Punch and, Fresh Homemade Fruit Punch

Christmas preparations begin in April. In every house there is a large glass jar, like a mayonnaise jar but 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 are cooking up a storm bringing every home to life with the delightfully smells of the various holiday dishes. They have been saving money and now they buy a ham, 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 the pot is turned down, 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 cross by me on Boxing Day." So each family will serve and be served, but if you are unable to host you would still be invited to come share the holiday spirit.

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 magic trick the curtains and wrappings are pulled away from the illuminated lights and the neighborhood is ablaze with color and light. Not many 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 crickets then somewhere, someone brings out the steel pan and begins to play along.

When 5am comes, the people go back inside to dress for church in their finest Christmas clothes. They go to church for 8am service to worship the true meaning of the day. They then return to open presents and perhaps catch a nap before going to visit or receive visitors. And that, is A Real Bajan Christmas.