I thought it would be interesting, seeing that we come from all parts of the globe, to share the traditional Christmas fare that is special to where we live, through what our Isolan villagers will eat on Christmas Day.

My Isolans will start the morning with a breakfast comprising cassava pone, coconut sweet bread, ham in salt bread, plantain, and maybe buljol and johnny cakes.

Later in the morning and all through the day, there'll be lots to quench the thirst on a Christmas day where the temperature is likely to be around 30 C (86 F). There'll be the traditional sorrel, as well as ginger beer, mauby, poncha crema, and plenty Bajan rum and falernum. And they'll listen through the day to the small village choir going from door to door singing calypso, soca and reggae carols, as well as Christmas songs played on the steelpan, and parang music.

After midday, a big Christmas feast which will include green pigeon peas & rice, baked pork, turkey (& gravy - no cranberry sauce), stuffing, pickled souse, pepperpot, plantain fritters, and jug-jug. For dessert, there will be Christmas black cake (also referred to as "great" cake). Even the children will have a small slice of that even though it's made with fruit that has been steeped in rum since the Christmas before. More cassava pone, and icecream.

After over-eating, my villagers will sit around pretending to chat, but really catching a snooze until evening when those who somehow miraculously find a little more room, may go back and nibble on some more baked pork and black cake.

(P.S. Here's a link that carries a brief explanation of those foods and drinks that may be unfamiliar to you)

my villagers will start their holiday a week early. they will eat Mexican food at a resturant the first day they are together. entirely too many margaritas will be imbibed, and the eldest female will insist that the fish are blinking.

the next morning there will be pancakes, waffles, fresh fruit, and at least one argument that leaves one of the children in tears, and another confined to the back room for 10 minutes. the villagers will then feast upon shrimp and crab and boiled red potatoes and drink beer and whiskey, for lunch. for dinner there will be more shrimp and crab and turkey sandwiches, more beer and more whiskey.

the next morning there will be waffles and fruit and bacon (turkey). for lunch there will be lasagna (or spagetti)and homemade garlic bread and beer and whiskey. for dinner there will be brisket and glazed ham, green beans, grilled corn, and pumpkin pie, beer and whiskey.

the next morning there will be donuts. for lunch there will be brisket sandwiches, ham sandwiches, and chips, plus beer and whiskey. for dinner- see lunch, new bag of chips.

the next morning there will be whatever is found in the freezer that can be nuked, because the toaster hasn't worked in years. for lunch, see yesterday, new bag of chips. for dinner, there will be fried fish, cole slaw, and french fries, plus beer and whiskey.

the next morning there will be grilled cheese sanwiches for breakfast, subway sandwiches for lunch, and for dinner half of us will have chinese food (probably fried rice) while the other half complains about the immagrants and eats sandwiches again- dont forget the beer and whiskey.

The day before Christmas there will be a huge plate of scrambled eggs (runny) and pre-buttered toast (soggy) and someone will eat half of the jar of olives that are supposed to be on the relish tray -which should have consisted of black olives (half gone) green olives (which no one remembered to buy), dill pickles, cherry tomoatoes, broccoli, squash, zucchini, broccoli, cucumber, and broccoli. Did I mention broccoli? Also, someone will make pigs in a blanket from miniweiners and crescent dough. No one will bother to eat lunch because they will be eating the relish trays. Dinner will be a fried turkey, dressing, greenbean casarole, a fight over whose idea it was to make candied yams when they know no one ever eats them, dinner rolls, and a lot of pie. beer and whiskey.

dinner will be served at 4 pm because one of the men decided he wants to make the 5 hour drive back home after dinner so the girls (teenagers) can open their santa gifts in the morning. he will however, eat too much, drink too much, and forget that he wants to leave because a football game is on (some team he really doesn't care about) and will end up passed out on the couch. By the time he wakes up, it will be too late for them to go home, so he will eat more turkey, go back to sleep, and then take the whole family home in time for Santa to visit them the next afternoon.

At some point, there will have been at least 3 seperate gift exchanges with the family. Generally a "teaser" where everyone gets to open one gift (either the best or worst-always depending on who is playing santa).

The big gift exchange will run smoothly for at most 14 minutes, during which time everyone opens one gift while the rest sit and watch. at some point, one of the elders will realize that the kids have many more presents than the adults too, and tender the suggestion that the kids open two at a time. what happens after that is frequently too horrific to describe- a mess of frenetic movements, paper flying, and pathetic sobbing about someone getting a ribbon stuck in their hair. the adults will retreat to the other side of the island, where they will open their presents in peace. they will then have to resort what gifts each kid was supposed to have gotten.

the third gift exhange will be when the eldest female discovers a stash of presents she had hidden last january, which are completely devoid of tags. the whole family will gather dutifully around, and watch with bated breath as the presents are opened one by one. the men will look at the tags in the underwear just unwrapped to decide who they belong to, the children will argue and tumble about trying to claim control of the many brightly wrapped rolls of quarters. the elders will settle the arguments by handing out 5 dollar bills until everyone has the same amount of money.

after everyone else leaves, children will be herded into the back rooms, and santa will visit. the adults will get chocolate and lottery tickets. the children will get pez and lottery tickets. santa will be disgruntled because no one left any of the super ridicuouly chocolate "brookies" out this year (or any year for that matter) and will search the kitchen for whatever cookies and or pies that remain.

entertainment during the week will consist of christmas music that has actually been played constantly since june, and every christmas movie ever made, including a few that will scare any and all young children. someone will attempt to start a round robin version of the 12 days of christmas,, which will break down into a shouting match when someone claims that there are in fact 11 lords a leapings, someone else will claim that the lords are sleeping, and yet another person will ask who on earth wants a partridge in a pear tree, because you can't make a good mean out of just one partridge. the men will then start talking about hunting season and forget the singing all together. at some point, popcorn will be popped to string in an effort to replace the popcorn that has been eaten off the tree by various cats, dogs, and cildren. unfortunately, these same children will proceed to eat all of the popcorn before it can be restrung and put back on the tree.

someone will rediscover the CD with I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas and there will much mirth and merriment as children, adults, and elders alike settle down and sing the song. it will be played repeatedly, ending when one of the elders gets tired of it, and hides the CD, to be rediscovered next year.

happy holidays.

the other half of the family will not get together because they cannot agree on anything for more than a milisecond. if perchance they do gather, one of the men will drink entirely too much and punch one of his brothers, who has also had entirely too much. if the police are not called and no stitches are required, everyone will disperse and drive home, leaving the gifts that they brought with them, taking the gift that they will probably open sometime after new years. by the time the 4th of july rolls around, most family members will be speaking again.

while this is entirely accurate, it is fun. entertaining at the very least.

I wanna go to eyeshigh's island for Christmas. It sounds like too much fun PLUS a few bags of chips!

the more the merrier!!

where irishmaura and scottish anji and kaimi... their Isolans should be eating some interesting things?

Not all my islanders celebrate Christmas. Some do Haunukkah, others Yuletide, and some choose to not celebrate anything and just sit by the lagoon and relax.

But unlike the real world, there's no strife between the different beliefs. They all get along and are happy together. Meshing their differences and celebrating their sameness.

not everyone in my family is christian. but we all celebrate christmas, even just as a time to be with family.

I'm talking about my little play people, though, Eyes. I'm mentally creating a utopia where people don't pout and complain about things that they could just compromise on or out and out ignore if they so choose.

In the real world my family does Christmas. I just like the thought that someday people might be like my little fake people, getting along and focusing on important stuff, rather then kicking up dust over things just to get attention.

believe it or not, my family has matured over the years, and we don't pout and complain that often.

we are rather like the villagers...we all have our jobs/responsibilities around the house, and if you ignore us for a while it will get done, but we get side tracked a lot by other things that either need to be done or we just want to do, especially around the holidays

Our tribe will spend all day at home. The In-Laws will come over Christmas Eve and spend the night. Before going to bed we will read the Christmas Story from the Book of John and tuck the kids into bed. In the morning we will see what Santa brought. Yeah!!!

We will then have a huge breakfast, well Brunch really. Then we will wait for the rest of the family to show up for Christmas dinner.

before the other side of the tribe broke down, we spent the first week before christmas with mom's tribe, then the day of at home, then the next week with dad's tribe.

then of course there were work parties for dad (whole family events) and then parties at school and at friend's houses.

chruch was always insane because we had three branches in the family (Catholic, Baptist, and Methodist) and we had to go to all of those services

things have calmed down now though, and it is more about family and spending time together than schedules and agendas.

the villagers all like it much better now.

Eyes - I think you misunderstand me.

When I talk about my villagers - I'm talking about my VV people.

When I talk about people pouting and complaining - I'm talking about people in the real world who get offended if a store clerks wishes them a merry Christmas or if their neighbor puts up a manger display. Not my family.

As for my family - well, one brother lives in Arizona. Another has decided he'd rather be an alcoholic and drug addict & live on the streets then be with the family who loves him. The final one will celebrate Christmas with us while mom complains about having to "do all the work" - which she wouldn't have to do if she'd just accept there's more then one way to do a task.

bah, i quit caring a long time ago if people said "the wrong thing". as far as i am concerned, they are expressing their beleifs, and if they don't happen to match mine, oh well.

respect and tolerance are two way streets.

True story. On another board I wished some folks there a happy Haunukkah. A guy who claims to be Christian told me I was being anti-Semetic for doing so. (While the Jewish members all wished me Happy Haunukkah in return.) Some of the athiest members went off on me too.

There's a possibility that my ancestors on my mom's side weren't originally Catholic. I'm going to do a midocondrial DNA test plus a family tree after the holidays to see if we're right.

In the meantime, I'm chosing to honor both holidays as best I can. And I don't care if other people think I'm being a bigot for doing so. (Though their "logic" for saying this makes no sense.) Eh, humans are SO weird!

But this is why I prefer my fake people to my real ones.

So - Happy Haunukkah and Merry Christmas!

the people who get upset are the people who feel threatened. christians who get upset probably aren't completely sure of their own faith. athiests, well, people who aren't mainstream get "attacked" all the itme, so are very defensive quite often.

they need to take a lesson from the villagers and learn to get along with their own lives and let it go.

can you imagine if there really were factions in our little villages that just refused to get along? they wouldn't survive.

Huh? How is wishing someone a Happy Chanukah being anti-Semetic?

Would I be accused of being anti-Christian if I wished that guy a Merry Christmas?

exactly! one thing is she said it while setting his pants on fire but i really doubt she would do that.

need to toss that guy into the ocean (or throw him on the cactus) then make him spend the holidays in my village with only the GC to keep him company!

that'll teach him.

Here's wishing everyone, including that stupid guy, Happy Holidays - whether it's Hanukkah, Kwanza, Christmas, Pancha Ganapati or whatever else anyone anywhere in the world celebrates

i just checked on my village, and they are dfinately celibrating something! the GC is throwing another party!

LOL

Happy Holidays to all of my fellow VV friends. I wish you all many blessings and joy this holiday season and into the new year. May all people be happy, safe and filled with joy every single day.

My Villagers will be having a glorious Christmas Eve Dinner of homemade Beef Tamales, Cornbread, Mexican Rice, Refried Beans, Enchiladas, and Spiced Coffee. For dessert they will enjoy a Butter Pecan flavored Birthday Cake. The youngest member of the tribe will then open their Birthday presents and there will be lots of giggling among the children.

The children will leave a slice of Birthday Cake, 2 tamales and a cup of Spiced Coffee for Santa, before crawling into bed for the evening.

Christmas morning the oldest child of the tribe will awake and make coffee before any of the adults have risen. The Male elder will then wake up and proceed to prepare a breakfast of chocolate pancakes and peanut butter syrup and bananas.

After breakfast, the tribe will meet in the village center to exchange gifts with each other and play games.

There is no "special" dinner prepared on Christmas Day in Kaimi's tribe. But the family will enjoy a good pot of Chicken Stew and biscuits as the sun sets on the day.

My folks like Chanuakkah Including a community Chanuakkah Menorah that stands in the center of the villiage, latkaes (pototoe pancakes)fried fish (my folks are Cajun);) fried jellied filled donuts, play the dreil, dance the hola, and of course listen to the stories of Chanuakkah told around fire light by Bubbe and Zayie (Yiddish for grandma and grandpa) Hmmm, I can still smell those latkaes....

I quite agree. I for one happen to enjoy both Christmas and Chanuakkah. With all of the problems we have in the world, why do people have to fight over what is to be the most wonderful time of the year?

Ho Ho Ho - and a very belated hello to you all.
I was at friends for 3 days and did nothing apart from eat and sleep LOL.
Breakfast Christmas Day, or should I say brunch, was bacon rolls. Just enough to keep the hunger pangs at bay until dinner time around 4.30pm. Then some had prawn cocktail and some had chicken soup followed by Roast Turkey, Roast Potatoes, Peas, Carrots, Brussel Sprouts (Yugghh!!) Chipolata Sausages wrapped in Bacon and Gravy. Then a huge Christmas Pudding with Brandy Cream which I'm ashamed to say my friend and I polished off on our own LOL !! Stuffed to the gunnels we were - afternoon activities comprised of big ZZZ's on the couches. Nothing more was eaten that day, we just couldn't manage. Boxing day was Turkey and Mayonnaise sandwiches, Mincemeat Pies and Christmas Cake which were all packed into my bag for me to have at my own home as well. No wonder we only eat Turkey at Christmas...........after 3 days of it we are sick of the sight of it LOL !! Champagne and Beer were on tap but I stuck to lots and lots of tea.......it being a diuretic, guess where I kept having to go LOL LOL !!
Great while it lasted but glad its only once a year !!