Christmas in the Caribbean

A year ago this Christmas we were nestled in our beautifully redone basement in our home in Milton, surrounded by decorations and a big tree with many gifts underneath, in front of our fireplace and 65” TV, with my parents and two family dogs happily playing with the kids. Oh what a difference a year can make! This year our immediate family plus Megan’s parents were crowded in our boat’s salon (about the size of our walk-in closet back in Milton), our tree was 6 inches tall, all our decorations came out of two shoe-boxes, and the only dogs on the scene were the scraggly ones we randomly met on the beach.

Going into this holiday season I knew it was going to be different than all the ones we’d experienced before, but I honestly wasn’t sure what it would be like and how everyone would react. What would we miss? What would we find we were happy to do without? Would Christmas be as special for the kids as it always was in Milton? Where would Santa land his sled and can reindeer swim?

Guess What? It was ok for Christmas to Last Less Than 6 Weeks

In prior years I always found myself lugging the multiple boxes of decorations out of the storage room on or about December 1st, about 3 weeks after the first sounds of holiday season music make their appearance in the grocery store. Maybe it was because my biological clock was thrown for a loop because we weren’t under constant Christmas retail bombardment starting in the middle of November, or maybe it was because our small living space tends to roll and pitch around a lot every time we leave an anchorage, but either way this year we decided to hold off putting up our Christmas decorations until after Grace’s birthday (December 18th).

It doesn’t take very long to unpack the decorations when all you have is a couple shoe-boxes! Before we left Milton we picked out the ones that were least likely to break.

If you had asked me a year ago if this would be a disappointment I probably would have said yes because picking out a kick-a$$ tree and decorating the house from top to bottom is something Aden and I really love about the season. But on December 19th, Aden and I still had a blast decorating the boat despite only having enough decorations to fit into 2 shoe boxes and a tiny, like 6” tall tiny, artificial tree. Did we miss picking out a real tree and using our best sailor knots to tie it to the roof the car Griswald-style? Yes, maybe a little, but in place of that Megan had the great idea for the kids to make ornaments and label them with the names of all our family and friends that we’d miss over the holidays. The kids had a great time doing it and came up with very apropos drawings to decorate each one (e.g. Uncle Kyle’s had beer, which he loves, and cucumber, which he detests). We also found the interior of the boat has a lot of unique places on which to hang decorations which we utilized in their entirety and it ended up looking pretty darn cozy and festive. Call me biased if you want.

A little blurry, but just assume this is what the fully decorated salon looks like after a couple rum punches. I’m trying to give you the real-world perspective here!

Grampy is standing in for our big-a$$ Christmas tree this year and Aden’s providing the star on top. You can see we’ve decorated the Grampy-tree with our home made ornaments, one for each of the people we missed seeing this year.

So December 19th was the real kick-off to our Christmas season this year and it turned out to be great. No one missed the long lead up with the stream of Amazon packages arriving at the doorstep, bombardment of holiday music on every radio station and in every store, and with Black Friday/Christmas/Boxing Day/etc sale signs everywhere you look. In fact, I think we all benefited from focusing on the Christmas holiday when it was actually Christmas-time and not thinking that much about it when it wasn’t.

The Holidays Make Me Homesick

After basking in our newly Christmas-themed interior for a few days, probably on or about December 23rd, I was surprised to find myself feeling homesick for the first time since leaving Milton (well after the initial shock of downsizing to the boat wore off that is…). I say the feeling took me by surprise because we were in beautiful St. Barth’s, surrounded by white sandy beach, crystal clear water, mega-yachts, and sunny 28C weather, but nevertheless I found myself missing the look of all the Christmas lights on the neighbour’s houses when it got dark (at 5:00pm because, you know, it’s Canada in December). I found myself missing a little chill in the air. I found myself missing eggnog (but not the rum since there’s plenty of that here). I found myself missing our dog Rosie who would sleep on the couch in front of the fireplace before getting up and giving the Christmas tree a good, unintended, whacking with her tail. I found myself missing the kids holiday concerts at school, as painful as they always are to watch in the moment. And most of all I found myself really missing the prospect of getting together with family and friends, complete with so much food that afternoon naps and eating leftovers is guaranteed until the New Year.

We spent a day wandering around Gustavia, St Barth’s and found a beautiful Catholic church. Here the girls are quietly taking in the nativity scene and discussing the meaning between the two of them. This moment really took me back to attending Chri… — We spent a day wandering around Gustavia, St Barth’s and found a beautiful Catholic church. Here the girls are quietly taking in the nativity scene and discussing the meaning between the two of them. This moment really took me back to attending Christmas mass at St. Mary’s in Tillsonburg.

This was the first Christmas I can remember where we didn’t spend a day with my mom and dad. Thank goodness for FaceTime which at least let us and them share some time together with the kids.

Secret Santa Might Be As Good As the Real Santa

One of the best things to happen this Christmas came from Grace’s off-the-cuff suggestion to do a ‘secret Santa’ with Grammy and Grampy (Megan’s parents) who were visiting us over the holidays. Grace dutifully made up small name-tags for each of us (plus four blanks because she thought it would be funny), put them in a Santa hat, and had us all draw one out while we were sitting in the cockpit one morning. By some miracle everyone ended up with a name other than their own and we mutually agreed to split up and take 2 hours after arriving in St Barth’s on Dec 23rd to buy a small secret Santa gift.

Here’s the Harris Crew on a Secret Santa mission in Gustavia, St Barth’s. The kids were shopping champs and we crushed through our list in no time flat!

Grace is thrilled with the new sunglasses I got here. And Liam and I are wearing the matching designer swim suits Megan and Aden teamed up on for us.

Not only did everyone, including the kids, manage to find a thoughtful, inexpensive (as much as that can be true in St Barth’s), and well-liked gift for their intended person, everyone had a great time doing the shopping and exploring a new town at the same time. Come Christmas morning, the secret Santa exchange was most definitely a highlight, I think because the gift-giver was at least as excited as the gift receiver in every case.

Liam’s loving the new Raptors swag he got from Santa with his yet-to-be-opened stocking beside him. He’s worn that hat ever single day since! #wethenorth

Santa delivered with some individual bottles of maple syrup for the kids (one of the items on their wish-list!). Grace is clutching her prized package of gum. I guess it’s the simple things…

The Real Santa is Still Magic

Santa also did his part. He understood we live on a boat now and filled the kids’ stockings with mostly edible things and a few small toys but nothing too extravagant or expensive as the salt water and sand would surely destroy them. Again, despite the smaller scale of Santa’s offerings the kids were just as excited, maybe even more so, than other years. Perhaps because they weren’t really sure he was going to make it. Perhaps because the lead-up and preparations for Christmas were so short and focused this year. Perhaps because everything inside the boat looks bigger since the space is so small. Regardless, it was magical and Megan and I were so grateful.

We only have a few years left where the magic of Christmas will be child-like for the kids and we’re holding onto that time as closely as we can. We were so happy to see that our modest, ad hoc, out-of-a-shoebox Christmas still held the wonder of the season for them (and us!).