Here in the Caribbean, Santa suns on the sands before heading back to the north pole, wisely taking advantage of the perfect temps and giving his boy Reggae Rudolph a well deserved break from defying the laws of physics all over the world.

So have a very Carib Christmas

It’s the best time of the year

With rum by day, steel drum reggae

And lots of ginger beer.

For an American, a Caribbean Christmas is a lesson in cognitive dissonance. Your brain knows what’s supposed to happen in December, but gets all weird when unexpected inputs happen. December holiday events had been so happily linked together based on the last 40 years of “normal” Christmases past. And this trained my synapses to know exactly how stimulus A was supposed to connect to the normal stimulus B. But now, cut my brain cells a lime for its Carib because none of this lines up any more.

For example, when Christmas happens, A) it should be cold weather, so we could actually celebrate legitimately ugly sweaters, B) there should be Grande Caramel Brulee Latte coffee-ish creamshakes, and C) I should hear annual carping about the crass commercialism that all of us happily shoot into our veins each year.

All that said, it’s not like the Caribbean doesn’t try to adapt and rise to meet the commercial opportunity at hand. Here is the menu for the JY Harbour view restaurant bar, and their festive seasonal choices.

Zoom in on these menu items.

The formerly-green-but-now-White Christmas Margarita is in obvious competition with the equally formerly-green-but-now-White Christmas Mojito. And I’m assuming that “Ravish on the Snow Bank” is the Christmas equivalent of “Sex On The Beach”.

See?? So festive! I’m having a holly jolly Christmas already!

After a quick review, I’m totally going for the Gingerbread Nog. It’s got chocolate, ice cream, Kahlua, coconut cream, amaretto, and cinnamon! What’s not to like about this gift from Santa other than the 4,000 calories it rode in on?

But … Logistics

Seriously, this is a killer when you’re living on a boat. Back in the US, we’re normally like an 8 year old Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka who can stamp their foot to get anything they want at any time of the day. Of course, in Atlanta it will take you 45 minutes to go around the corner so you have to be totally tactical, by making surgical grocery store sortees for example.

But out here in the islands, getting anywhere isn’t complicated by crazy road raged drivers hopped up on brulee lattes, but by the fact that we live on a boat. So our “Toyota Camry” is actually a little dinghy tied up behind us, and Google Maps shows that our road is a nothing but a bouncy sea we have to flomp over to get anywhere we want to go.

So, picture this.

You have to get Christmas stuff, wrap packages, and send them home. Easy peasy right? Well yes Veruca, normally. But in the Caribbean, when you’re not distracted by the Pain Killers, steel drum reggae, and cannabis wafting through the air, it’s just a little more complicated.

In this video, Dottie walks you through the process of it all.

A Very Sweet Surprise

Sometimes things happen that make you just stop.

In the perpetual fast forward of our lives, turning the knob into super slo-mo and just listening to the echo of beautiful voices, sweetly singing their celebrations of the season.