Christmas on St. Thomas

We survived the holiday weekend. Wow, Christmas is a HUGE event here. On Christmas Eve, I took Derek and Suzanne to K-Mart, downtown, and Havensight so we could do some holiday shopping. It wasn't crowded more than usual, so I don't think many locals do a lot of last minute shopping. (Although Dave's afternoon trip to K-Mart may indicate otherwise.) Derek was impressed by the lack of items on the shelves in K-Mart - we were looking for some cold medicine as it seems I caught a bug at work and gave it to Derek. Derek and Suzanne got to experience the lengthy lines at K-Mart too - there may only be two people in front of you, but you'll be in line for about 15 minutes nonetheless.

In town we checked out our favorite liquor shop - Dynasty - and had some free samples. Mostly the shops in town sell liquor, jewelry, edible gifts like rum balls, or generic touristy junk. After spending some time in town, we went to Havensight so I could swing by Gourmet Gallery. I bought some chocolate for some of my gift recipients. Since Derek and I weren't feeling so well, we didn't do much else that day other than read our books and listen to the surprisingly quiet holiday music of our neighbors. (often they play loud, annoying music) We ate some food I'd gotten from work over the past week - pasteles and potato stuffing. Pasteles remind me a lot of tamales but they are wrapped with a plaintain leaf and are made with green bananas and instead of cornmeal, there are garbonzo beans on the outside. I thought they were quite good. They are a bit of a delicacy here though as they are very labor intensive. Someone at the courthouse brought them over from St Croix where his cousin had made them. People in the clerk's office at work keep an eye out for me for local foods - seems like I always get a call from someone saying "have you tried this? we thought you'd want to taste it!"

After we all went to bed on Christmas Eve, everyone else on the island began their holiday celebrations. Christmas music got louder and louder. Dave and I turned our dehumidifer on for some white noise, but I felt bad for Derek and Suzanne with just the earplugs we'd purchased for our guests to drown out the noises from the various bugs and chickens and dogs nearby. At 3am I walked out to our deck, determined to yell at our next door neighbor to turn it down, knowing I would just be viewed as the outsider who can't understand how the islanders celebrate the holidays. But then I realized the music was coming from much farther away and higher up on the hill. Since there was nothing I could do about it, I just went back to sleep.

When my alarm went off at 6:30am, Dave and I got up and headed downtown to listen to the Challenge of the Carols. For the past few months, people I work with at the courthouse have been telling me about this. Apparently, tons of carolers get up at dawn and start singing at Emancipation Garden on the bandstand. Each group sings various songs for awhile. We heard two different groups singing. We didn't recognize the songs, though they were clearly Christmas songs, just a stronger religious leaning than the ones I know. Some of them were quite good.

Today I found out that some of the caroling groups go around to various parties all night long on Christmas Eve before arriving at the Challenge in town. Christmas Eve parties here sound like New Years Eve parties in other places.

While we were up, we took some photos of the harbor in the early morning. Afterwards we headed home for a little more sleep before we opened presents by our awesome lighted palm tree I got at K-Mart!!! And we had omelettes, courtesy of Chef Dave. In the afternoon, we went to Morningstar Beach, which was more crowded than Dave and I have ever seen before. For dinner, Dave cooked various seasoned steaks on the barbeque along with some zucchini (the only vegetables always available here) and Derek and Suzanne made some shrimp risotto. We'd hoped for lobster but couldn't figure out where to buy fresh ones. While staying on St John last week, Derek and Suzanne had gotten some grilled pineapple, so Dave cooked some of that too. We had a very tasty Christmas dinner! (I set the table!)

We hope everyone had or is having a Happy Holiday season! (more on the origins of our holiday photo later....)