A Weary Christmas In Kerala

Christmas really started on the afternoon on Dec 24th when we put up our tree. Pine trees are hard to find, but we have 6 coconut trees in our yard and we all agreed that a palm frond makes a good tropical Christmas tree. With a string of lights, plenty of home-made decorations and shiny paper the tree took on a festive look.

Aunt Jane arrived in the midst of decorating to complete our family gathering and we all headed off to the beach for an afternoon swim. Christmas eve was a beautiful warm evening with lots of tourists on the cliff, both Indian and foreign, some places offered music or dancers or special meals. We opted for the view and ate dinner at the Tibetan restaurant that has a balcony looking over the cliff where we watched the waves crash on the beach in the moonlight.

Everyone was very tired when we got home, but not too tired to hang stockings and write a note to Santa. Good thing Ann was prepared and the presents were all wrapped so we could turn in at a reasonable time.

Christmas morning, as always, comes early and luckily Santa, who managed to find us in Varkala this year, generously rewarded the kids’ good behaviour. After opening the stockings we went for our usual morning swim, but for once the kids were not pressing to stay longer as they knew of a mound of presents under the palm frond at home. Presents are important, but social life trumps all as we found when Rob and Kate abandoned us on the way home to join the gang of kids at the soccer field for their ‘Christmas party’ (see Rob’s blog post "Les Apres Midis en Inde" to learn about his soccer friends).

An hour later we were all back together and tackling the pile of gifts. Somehow, even with almost no extended family involved, we managed to have enough presents to take all afternoon. Indian clothing featured large on everyone’s list, and fortunately our tailor works on Christmas day so we pushed the concept of ‘last minute shopping’ to collect a pair of shorts at 3pm on Dec 25th.

We had invited two Canadians we met here to join us for Christmas dinner, so along with Aunt Jane, we would be seven at the table. They are from Toronto; she comes to India for 6 months every year for her business making clothes in India to export and sell in Toronto. Her brother has joined her this year in to explore India and discover himself. Given the predictable warm and clear weather and the smallness of our dining room, we decided to set up our Christmas party on the roof. Our roof is typical for buildings in the tropics, a flat concrete slab with a 70 cm wall all the way round, easily accessed by stairs. With the help of a neighbour we rigged up electrical connections (no one has an extension cord) to plug in the tree lights and the computer (which we tuned into an all Christmas music Internet radio station), swept off the sand and carried up tables and chairs. At 7pm when the guests arrived for hors d’ouevres and cocktails, the moonlight was just enough to add to the candles and Christmas lights for a mellow but festive atmosphere.

Turkey is not available in Varkala, but some form of poultry is required for Christmas dinner so we decided to get our first chicken. The modern supermarket with some products for foreigners offers exactly two formats of chicken: frozen tikka pieces and frozen nuggets. A neighbour suggested a place to buy a chicken, and not only was it whole, but also alive! Sorry but plucking and preparing our Christmas bird was not on my wish list! Luckily Kumari came to the rescue, as she was more than willing to deal with all the preparations and deliver a wonderful dish of curry chicken along with an assortment of delicious Indian dishes for our Christmas dinner. Ann says she is willing to host Christmas dinner anytime as long as it is catered.

After dinner we invited our Indian neighbours to join us for Christian entertainment featuring various members of the Weary family playing, singing and acting out King Wenceslas and Silent Night, and readings from Ramona and King John’s Christmas. Rob played the recorder particularly well.

After the children had gone to bed and the guests had gone home, Ann and I were cleaning up the last of the stuff from the roof, when we decide to check in with our families back home (as it was about 2 pm in Canada). The final treat for a marvelous Christmas day was a conference call with Mahers in Bathurst and Cayman.

Boxing day we went to the beach with a picnic lunch!

Be sure to see our flickr site for all the photos.

Happy New Year to all.