Dear readers, friends, family. Ashley and I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas. I know it’s been a long time since we’ve seen many of you. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 6 months, counting back to when we first started on this journey. Some of you we’ll see in the new year, and we are really looking forward to that, but for the most part, we’ll probably spend 2012 apart. I know it’s hard to stay in touch over such long distances and time, but we’re committed to keeping you up to date on what’s happening in our lives through our blog, facebook, twitter and email. We love hearing about what you’re up to as well, and have cherished every email, and blog comment that you’ve sent our way. In short, we just wanted to say… we miss you.
Here’s a little update on what Christmas has been like for us on the Cays (pronounced Keys)
It’s warm. It was 25 °C yesterday, and will probably hit 27-30 °C today. As you expect, there’s no snow, but we did have a healthy Christmas Eve rain shower yesterday which passed our test for a “white Christmas”.
Despite the lack of snow, there’s no lack of snowmen or decorations. Here’s photos of just a few. What’s really amazing is the amount of lights on display. Electricity here is really really expensive. But people cope by only turning their lights on for a few hours after sunset each day. A simple energy conserving trick you could try at home… maybe next year.
Christmas Decorations
Snowman Without Snow
We spent Christmas Eve with a couple of good Austrian friends, sharing a fabulous Christmas dinner in line with the Austrian tradition of celebrating on the 24th of December. We had the best roast chicken, stuffing and homemade perogies in half a year, listened to the Hawksley Workman Christmas Album “Almost a Full Moon”, drank some rum and eggnog, and generally had a great time. By the end of the night, it really did feel like Christmas.
Ashley making perogies. The Nalgene water bottle doubled as a rolling pin!
Christmas Dinner
We were also invited for a pot-latch supper in Utila with the Captain Morgan’s staff. Unfortunately, we couldn’t be in both places at once… and a combination of boat captains taking the day off, weather, and a headache on Ashley’s part forced us to send our regrets. Merry Christmas guys, we’ll try and make it out for the next social.
That brings us to the 25th – our traditional day of Christmas back home
We opened our Christmas presents this morning, a new dive computer shared between us (an essential piece of diving equipment for any serious diver), and a potato masher. We actually used the potato masher last night to make the perogies, and it worked so much better than mashing with a fork!
If all goes well, we’ll get to try out our new dive computer this morning. Later for supper our landlords, some of the nicest people on the planet (we started the day with Christmas hugs from them), invited us over to their house for Christmas supper. We’re really looking forward to it.
That’s our Christmas! When you get a chance, maybe drop us a line (through a comment or an email) and let us know how things went for you this holiday season.
Sounds wonderful! Merry Christmas you two!
And a happy Chrismukkah to you as well.
Hey Mike,
Great site! Keep it up,
–edited to remove link–
Thanks!
D
Thanks for the kind words.
Happy Christmas! Food looks great! Wonderful pictures. I wish it was 25C here in Toronto. 🙁
I hear you are having one of the warmest winters on record back home. At least they are in Saskatchewan. Still, 25C is undoubtedly nicer (even if I still find it a bit on the cool side)