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The Amaryllis Bloomed Exactly on Time This Year
December 27th, 2006

12 Christmas Things


  • But, hey, you interested in a dozen things I remember about Christmas in Jamaica?
  • Wearing a light sweater as the sweet Christmas breeze fluttered my hair, lifted my summer dress high over my head.
  • An extravaganza of nodding Poinsettias in the front yard, every plant bent over over from its floral burden.
  • A spindly Christmas pine, its crooks stuffed with cotton snow, branches badly garlanded with cheap, fat, garish, ugly, gold tinsel.
  • A parade of Jonkunnus dancing and prancing around on stilts, every mother’s child scared and hiding behind a grown-up.
  • Fee-Fees, a short length of bamboo attached to a balloon and a dyed, down feather; the pretty balloon whistles as it inflates/deflates. Squibs, the Jamaican name for firecrackers. Starlights, which are sparklers.
  • Sharing the luxurious treat of polished “American” Red Delicious apples with skins that had an exquisite, vaguely nail-polishy aroma.
  • Ruby-stained fingertips sore from picking prickly Sorrel petals for the traditional Christmas drink.
  • The tradition of braided rolls and cream of pumpkin soup my mother started when our family dwindled to five people.
  • Rum-soaked Christmas Pudding served on fancy, cut-glass side plates.
  • Being all teary because Santa had forgotten to bring the presents I’d seen unwrapped in my parents’ bedroom.
  • A molded plastic dolly I named Dennis. The smell of his adorable little slip-off plastic shoes.
  • A taxi stops at our gate, a foot keeps the car door open for the time it takes to pay the fare, and out comes unexpectedly–my big brother who lives in Paris!


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