Christmas in Barbados

Christmas in Barbados is kind of a big deal. All that is on the radio, starting right after Independence Day - Nov. 30, is Christmas music. Every station except for the BBC plays some variety of Christmas songs. There's soca Christmas, reggae Christmas, calypso Christmas, Christmas played with steel pans, and of course, Bing Crosby and White Christmas. The only thing here close to a white Christmas are the white sands of the beaches and white foam in the waves.

Here's an example, it's Scrunter singing "I Want a Piece a Pork for Me Christmas."




This photo of a lady on Christmas day is from notnA's Flickr stream.





We had the great fortune of being invited for Christmas dinner last night. This was a Bajan Christmas. I don't know what other Barbadian Christmas celebrations are like but this was very festive...hats...charades...a beautiful table setting...prayers, one to the Queen (!)...toasts. And the food was delicious. There was baked ham and roasted turkey with fabulous gravy. The stuffing had rum in in. There was jug jug, whipped sweet potatoes, cou cou, beets, macaroni pie, and bread pudding with rum for dessert. You can't tell in the photo but we all have a head adornment of some sort and the table is filled with lovely ornaments, candles and glasses. What a fun time we had and what a privilege to attend.

More photos are here on my Flickr.

Travelers Checks in Barbados - Don't Bother

I don't like to gripe and use this space for ranting, but American Express Travelers Checks are useless in Barbados. We brought a lot, I blogged about it, but if I had it to do over again, I would not bother with travelers checks. Not one vendor has taken them. They are NOT like cash here in Barbados. Even banks are not thrilled with them. If you're coming for a short visit, bring cash or use the plentiful ATMs and just suck up the transaction fees. Or if you're very fond of travelers checks, make sure there is a bank here that your home bank has a relationship with and then you can cash those checks.

The image above is from Wikipedia.