Because Belize is so culturally diverse, there are a lot of different Christmas customs that go on. Such as the Mayan Deer Dance, the Garifuna Jankuna Dance, Christmas Bram and more. Some of these celebrations involve very elaborate costumes that are a sight to see. Of course, being on the Caribbean shores you know there will also be some boat parades at some of the coastal towns. And most Belizeans will also celebrate Christmas the traditional American way by decorating a tree and waiting around for Santa to arrive.

All of the small villages and bigger towns usually put up a community Christmas tree in their town square or park. The trees range from simple to very big and elaborate. It doesn’t matter the size or amount of decorations on the tree, every community takes great pride in their tree.

In our village of San Antonio, they put up a real pine tree in the town square this year. And if you are wondering, yes Belize does have pine trees. After all, our main road is called Pine Ridge Road that leads up to Mountain Pine Ridge.

Everyone here really gets into the Christmas spirit and decorates their houses with lights and other decorations. Almost every store and business has some type of Christmas decorations and you can usually hear Christmas music playing in the background.

We are no exception, we’ve got our Christmas lights up on the house and the back patio, the tree is decorated inside and the monkeys are once again helping with the garland. Of course, we are also watching some of the classic animated Christmas specials as well as some of the movies. Some of our favorite Christmas shows are Charlie Brown, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Christmas Vacation, and A Christmas Story. What are some of your favorite holiday shows?

Of course, Kelley is making Christmas cookies again this year that we will take around to some of our friends. This year’s assortment consists of ginger snaps, peanut brittle, chocolate-caramel covered pretzels, red velvet white chocolate chip cookies, almond crescents, heath bars with almonds, and some oatmeal raisin cookies with a white chocolate drizzle.

We will also be keeping up our tradition of Prime rib on Christmas eve and eggs benedict and mimosas on Christmas morning. Later on Christmas Day, I will be making cioppino (an Italian fish stew) with fish, lobster, conch and shrimp to finish off the Christmas day feasting. When it’s all over I’m sure we will have had too many cocktails and too much food, but what the hey, it’s Christmas. Amanda will be joining us as well as Ron and Rhonda who will be back down here for a few days over Christmas. After all, we’ll still have another week or so before the diet and exercise begins, Right!

The holidays are a great time to have a few friends over for some tasty food and holiday cheer. So we broke out the ole disco and cooked up some of that fish we scored a few weeks ago when we were over on the coast. The fish turned out absolutely delicious, I think the Jacks we got just might be my new favorite type of fish. Everyone brought something to go with the fish, we had hush puppies, fries, chips & salsa, pasta salad, coleslaw and even some cookies. It was a great sunny afternoon with good friends, music, cold beer and some great food.

In case you are wondering what a disco is, it’s a plow disk from a tractor. The hole in the middle of the disk gets welded up, a rim and some handles are added then it’s good to go. We use ours on top of a turkey fryer burner and it works out great. Because the disk is such a heavy metal, it retains the heat and is perfect for cooking. We learned about these when we were living in Mexico and have been using one for at least 30 years now.

We have been seeing lots of small animals and birds moving around here lately. The other day Kelley got a picture of Tananger. He was bright red as if he was all dressed up for the Christmas season.

Another critter we have seen around here in the past, but have yet to get a picture of is an armadillo. That changed when this cute little guy started coming around during the day. He was right in front of the house and didn’t even mind that Kelley was up close taking pictures. The armadillo was rooting around for insects and came within a foot of her while she was taking pictures. Then the next day he was back again and that time Kelley managed to get some video of him.

Our December weather here has been all over the board. There have been sunny days where we’re pushing 90° and it feels like summer. Then there were days where the fog set in so thick and we couldn’t see the end of the driveway. Then to mix it up a little, it rained for a week straight which gave up a total of 5″. That rain really got our creek behind the casita flowing, which doesn’t happen too often. Now as we are approaching Christmas the nighttime temps are in the mid 50°s.  This time of year we just don’t know what to expect, but one thing for sure is that there will be no snow.

This is for all our friends up in the cold country. Hope you are staying warm!

Here’s wishing everyone a Merry Christmas from Belize! We hope everyone is healthy and all your Christmas wishes come true.