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blah blah blah la la la. Or maybe Fa la la la la la la la la???
We’re spending this Christmas in Haiti, and while I sometimes still feel that pull to be back in Canada, now that the kids are older I realize that this is their home, and it’s good to be home for Christmas. Yes, I miss family and all the things we would normally do while there (snow!), but as a family we’re forging new traditions here, and making memories that our kids will carry with them for life.
I think living abroad, whether it’s as a missionary or as an expat in general, is hardest during the holidays. It’s that reminder that things are not what you are used to, and you need to adapt and make the best of what you have or are living in. I’m thankful that over the years we’ve been able to establish a life here in Haiti that we truly love, and that feels like home to us. We have a place to live that is comfortable and restful, especially when things outside our gate are so different from our home culture.
Growing up my family Christmas traditions shifted as we got older and our family priorities changed. There were some constants though. We always got our Christmas tree two Saturdays before Christmas, and decorated it the same day. There were always lots of decorations in our house. When I was younger Christmas Eve was spent with my mom’s side of the family, and Christmas day after we had done our own thing as a little family, was spent with my Dad’s side of the family. Eventually as everyone’s families got bigger and kids started having kids, those celebrations changed, but it was always about being with family. Our family always got up early, opened stockings and then gifts, and then had breakfast. Turkey has always been the big Christmas dinner. My mom always makes shortbread and a few other treats that she mixes new ones in with. As we got older we started going to church on Christmas Eve, and having a nice candle lit dinner together before or after, depending on the time of the service.
Chris and I spent our first couple of Christmases with family either in BC or in Washington. Once we brought Olivia home we were committed to having at least one of us always with her in Haiti until our adoption was completed, so that meant no family vacations, and no leaving for Christmas. Thankfully family came to us those first couple of years. We did three more Christmases in Canada after that, and now we’re going on Christmas #4 in Haiti as a family of 4. Would we enjoy being with family at this time of year, and could we travel? Yes. But, when we look at the expense, the amount of winter driving we’d have to do to see everyone, and the fact that we pay as much to go in the winter as we do in the summer and we’re limited in time, it seems like a better choice to put that funding into a 6 week summer vacation where we can see everyone and also get out and go camping with our kids. So, we stay in Haiti, and that’s meant creating new traditions with our kids and Haiti family.
So, what have we kept, and what has been created for our little family around the holidays?
There are some things that take place every year here. On a work level, we always work until the week before Christmas, and the last Friday is our staff Christmas party. Chris and I spend time earlier in the week making sure all the accounting and salary info is caught up, then we start working on putting together staff bonuses and vacation pay. Haiti has a law that all regular employees are entitled to a 13th month of salary, or a month bonus, at some point during the year. We like to do it right at the end of the year, because we take about two weeks off for the holidays, so that paired with whatever wages are owed for the last week or two of work, and two weeks of vacation pay is a big Christmas gift to our staff. Haitians don’t celebrate Christmas in the same way that we do, but they do give gifts, so some of the funds will go to that and having a bigger meals with friends and family, but New Years day is the really big celebration because it also marks Haiti’s Independence day. Our staff party always has food. I made pizza a couple of years ago in an effort to do the cooking myself and give Yonese the day to enjoy with the rest of the staff, and it was a big hit, so that’s become part of our staff party tradition. We play games and use the prizes from those games as our gifts to staff, so everyone goes home on a happy note.
Our kids finish school every year the day before our last day of work, and they have their Christmas program the Friday night, so between that and the staff party all in one day, it’s busy, but fun. This year Alex’s class was given the job of serving cookies to everyone, and let me tell you, that kid rocked his job. He was very enthusiastic and handsome :)
They chose two kids from each class to be in the choir or participate in the play, and because Olivia has had a key role in the past this year she got to enjoy watching it along with the rest of us.
Gah! Olivia loves dressing up, but this was the first time as an older kid that Alex got special clothes and it was like he turned into a little Old Navy model. His sister was right there with him. Case in point…
Or this…
Because we get two or so weeks off as a family, we try to really enjoy the time together. Our summer holidays are filled with international travel, which is fun, but can also be tiring. It’s nice to have time where we can just sleep in, relax, go slow, and have fun together. Last year, because we had just moved, we basically collapsed and recuperated for two weeks. I think we were also the only ones here from our local missionary group, so it was a very quiet Christmas.
This year, only a small group of our friends have left, so we’re making a point of spending time with friends as much as possible, and balancing that with good time at home.
I always try to do some Christmas baking but definitely don’t go to the level that I probably would if we were living in Canada. Sugar cookies and gingersnaps are always on the list, and then I usually add some other cookie or treat in there. Sometimes it’s shortbread, sometimes it’s another thing. This year I tried a new peppermint truffle cookie that was so yummy that they’re already all gone. Alex’s one request for something he wanted to do this Christmas was to make gingerbread men, which we hadn’t done before. On Tuesday I mixed up the dough, we cut them and baked them, then decorated. The kids loved it, I made it out alive ;)
We added a new baking tradition this year. We have a tree called a rum berry, that gives fruit the size and shape of an olive, but they’re dark purple. I made jam with a bunch of them back in September, but when we still had more coming Chris decided to not let them go to waste and found a recipe for a rum berry liqueur. He basically took a giant jar and put the pitted rum berries, raisins, prunes, vanilla beans, sugar and some spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, and added two bottles of rum to it all. We let it sit for three months so the flavors could meld together. When he was mixing it he commented on the fact that it would be a shame to waste the fruit when it was time to drain it, and I told him that we didn’t have to since my grandma always made fruitcake with candied fruit she soaked in rum for a couple days. I figured 3 months would be better, right? Last Thursday he cracked open the jar, drained the fruit off, and on Saturday I made fruitcake. Alex and I went to the store and bought maraschino cherries, pineapple and cashews (couldn’t find almonds) and I made a triple batch of dark fruit cake with everything. You guys, this stuff is ridiculously good! The tree gives fruit twice a year, so we might be making this ahead of time and freezing it… ;) My Granny’s fruitcake was always so good, so it’s fun for me to carry on the tradition with a Haiti twist to it.
One tradition that we’ve added in the past few years is that we take the kids down to one of the local resorts one evening in the days leading up to Christmas. If we’re going to go out for a nicer dinner, this is where we go, and about 4 years ago they started lighting up a whole bunch of trees on the property. Not much gets Christmas lights outside of our house in our area, so it’s fun to go there and see a bit of Christmas. This year we’re getting together with friends and have decided to go get bbq chicken in town and take it to the picnic area there, eat, then go for drinks and let the kids play on the play ground. We call it cheap and fun!
On Christmas Eve we’ve changed things up a bit too. Haitian churches don’t do the same kind of Christmas Eve service that we’re used to. It’s more like a talent show, so we don’t go and choose to spend the time at home as a family. Rather than a big dinner we started making pizza a few years ago, and we hang out and watch a Christmas movie together. This is something we do about once a month as a family as a bit of a special thing since there aren’t a lot of entertainment options here, so it’s something we look forward to.
One tradition that we’ve kept from my family is that on Christmas Eve the kids get to open one gift, and it’s always pajamas. What we’ve added to it is that they also get a new book. Reading is a big thing for our family and something that’s part of the kids bedtime routine, so new books are always exciting. It’s fun to snuggle up with the kids on Christmas Eve in their new pj’s and read them a new story.
We don’t do Santa with our kids because we live in a place where Santa doesn’t come to every home, so we didn’t want to create something that would be hard to explain. Why does Santa come to our house but no one else’s? So, we skip that and talk about Santa openly as a fun thing, and that it celebrates the spirit of giving at Christmas.
We do do stockings, so after the kids go to bed and Chris and I are on our way there I go and stuff the stockings. Getting to this point for me felt like growing up. I know that’s funny, but my Mom is always the stocking stuffer, except for me when I’m there and I do hers, so it felt like a right of passage when I started doing this for our family. And, as a window into missionary life, I buy most of our stocking stuffers, and even about half of our Christmas gifts in July when we’re back on vacation. That might seem like a lot of planning, which it can be, but it has it’s perks. One is that I don’t have this mad rush to get stuff, in a place where the options are limited. The other is that I can buy stuff for the kids that is useable in Haiti where we have shorts weather year round. I typically stock up on flip flops and summer clothes while we’re on vacation, and save some of those for Christmas gifts for the kids. I’ve learned that by December the flip flops they got in the summer are probably trashed, and a bunch of their shirts have stains on them, so it’s a nice little boost to their wardrobes.
On Christmas morning my family always woke up and opened stockings, then gifts, and then ate breakfast. That’s the tradition that we’ve carried on with our kids. Chris’ family typically took a break between stockings and gifts for a light breakfast, but with young kids it’s easier to get all the gift opening out of the way. I value my sanity! This year we’ve established a new rule called “you aren’t allowed out of your room until it’s starting to get light out” because last year we told them that when they woke up they needed to come in and snuggle with us. We weren’t counting on it happening at 4 am, and trust me, no one was going back to sleep!
Both our families have always had a big turkey dinner on Christmas day, and that was something that I ached for in my need to have some sense of normalcy here in Haiti. I remember the first Christmas that we spent here. My parents and brother were flying in, and had to deal with a two day delay because of a snow storm on the West Coast. They finally arrived Christmas day and we celebrated everything a day later than planned. I was so excited because I was able to find a turkey in one of our local stores. This was before we started doing monthly grocery shops in Port au Prince, so this was a BIG deal. It was my first turkey dinner that I cooked by myself.
Turkeys can be expensive here, in the range of about $50 for a 15lb bird, but it’s a splurge we make every Christmas so we can have a nice Christmas dinner. This year I was traveling through the US the week of American Thanksgiving, and I was able to buy a BIG frozen turkey, which is just another window into missionary/expat life. We bring frozen meat and food of all kinds back in our luggage. The best part was that I paid $15 for a 22lb turkey. I also bought a big cooler bag, stuck that sucker inside, then put the whole thing in the hotel fridge, and then popped it in my carry on the next day. It arrived home still completely frozen :)
One thing I started doing several years ago was brining my turkey. Once you brine you can’t go back! I use the Pioneer Woman’s Favorite Turkey Brine. It’s so good. As I type this our turkey is defrosting and the brine is ready and waiting. I normally wouldn’t brine until tomorrow morning, but because it’s a big turkey and we’re going to eat in the early afternoon on Christmas day I need to get it prepped and stuffed tomorrow night so I can put it right in the oven when we get up.
I know some people cook an unstuffed turkey and do stuffing on the side, but I am not one of them. I use my Granny’s Stuffing recipe, which always gets rave reviews. As I mentioned in the recipe, I have to do some substitutes, also part of missionary/expat life. We can occasionally get celery here, but only in Port au Prince and it’s imported, so we don’t buy it. Chris also hates it, so there’s that. Instead I often use either parsley or watercress. Both are good and add a bit of color. I also add dried cranberries at Christmas and it gives a sweet and savory flavor that is amazing. I’ve literally made this for a Christmas party in a church kitchen and had staff stopping by to see what I was cooking because it smelled so good.
One thing I started doing for Christmas dinner when I can, is making homemade cranberry sauce. I was able to buy fresh cranberries while I was away, freeze them in the hotel fridge overnight, then pack them with the turkey and put them in our freezer when I got back. Homemade cranberry sauce is amazing and so easy to make. Chris would eat any cranberry sauce right out of the can if I let him, and he does actually do this when I find it or my Mom buys him a stash of it, but this stuff is off limits until Christmas day!
Cranberry Sauce
1 c. sugar
1 c. water (you can do half water and half orange juice to add some special flavor)
1 12 oz pk fresh or frozen cranberries
Optional add-ins: orange zest, cinnamon, nutmeg, chopped pecans.
**I added a couple tablespoons of orange zest at the end, and about 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. You will probably want to double this because it’s that good!
This year for Christmas dinner we’ve invited some friends to join us. Last year was the first Christmas we were completely on our own, and it was fine, but because we have friends in country this year we wanted to share the day with them. We’re looking forward to the time together and having a relaxing afternoon/evening.
So that’s our Christmas time here in Haiti. We’ve been having fun hanging out, reading, doing puzzles, playing video games and visiting with friends so far. There’s an amazing cool breeze blowing today, so even though the sun is out it feels like fall/winter, which makes my heart happy.
I have a bunch of house pictures to share because we’ve been living here for a year now and I still haven’t given you a tour yet. My mom was begging me for pictures, so I figured doing a holiday house tour kills two birds with one stone. I’ll try to get those up in the next week. I have a lot of important holidaying to do :)
Merry Christmas from our family to yours!
Last month went by in a bit of a whirl for me. Chris came back from his trip to see his brother in October and a few days later told me that he thought it would be a good idea for me to head to Canada for two weeks to help our board transition some things that needed to be taken care of. I quickly threw plans in place and a couple weeks later was jetting off. The bonus was that I got to stay with my parents and have a good visit with them and my brother, and saw a bunch of friends at a fundraiser that we did.
The other fun thing is that it was the first time I had been in North America in the pre-Christmas season in several years and it was fun to be in cool weather and be able to wander through stores and see everything decked out. I LOVE Christmas and look forward to putting up my decorations every year. After hours spent wandering through stores with my mom I was excited to return to Haiti at the beginning of the week of American Thanksgiving and get to decorating the house.
Last year we were in the last few weeks of building and getting ready to move, so I didn’t decorate. Instead I worked 12 hour days, came home and showered off layers of grime and fell into bed exhausted. We moved on December 14th, I did a fast trip to Port the next day, on the 16th I threw up my decorations, and then we had our staff Christmas party the day after that. Then I collapsed because I was just plain worn out. It was like running a marathon and then trying to “do” Christmas. Everything was new and I wasn’t sure how to use my decorations in the new space. We had moved from an apartment that was about 900 square feet, to a two storey house that was about 2200 square feet. I did what I could with the time available, but I knew coming into this Christmas that I was going to really enjoy taking more time to decorate.
Until I didn’t. Enjoy it, I mean. I did a little bit, but what I planned to do over several days, I started, then left a box sitting for a few days, and then made myself do it all in one day. I wondered what the heck was wrong with me? I was just in this weird funk. I know now that there are some things I need to be doing to take better care of myself, but beyond that I was just struggling with being excited about decorating like I usually was.
I need to take a step back here for a few minutes so you can get the bigger picture. Back in 2009 when I went to the US in December to be in a friends wedding I seized the opportunity to buy and bring back a Christmas tree for our family. My parents had brought us a 4 foot one the year before, the first Christmas that Chris and I didn’t travel “home” because we had started our adoption. When we moved into the apartment I knew I wanted a bigger tree, so I bought one online and that thing just fit into my bags. It claimed it was 6 feet tall, but that was a gross exaggeration. The thing was really 5 feet with a one foot top branch that was so floppy it couldn’t hold anything without extra support. But, I loved that tree because it was ours and it fit this one perfect spot in our apartment without taking up a huge amount of space. A few years ago the base broke on it, so I made a new one that raised it up and I could pretend that it really was 6 feet tall. I have good memories of decorating it and snuggling by the lights with Chris as we watched movies in the living room. I remember Alex also chewing on the Christmas lights. Thank goodness they were indoor/outdoor lights and water proof…
For my whole life picking out the Christmas tree was always my very favorite part of getting ready for the holidays. Our family always carved out a Saturday two weeks before Christmas and went together to get the tree. Always. I always had two rules for picking out a tree – it had to be taller than me, and it needed to be as bushy as possible. I wanted it FAT! After wandering around and narrowing down our choice we would make the purchase and we would bring it home, Dad would fight with it to get it straight in the stand, then sit back and watch as I put the lights on. When that was finished we would push it back into it’s corner, and he would tie it with fishing line to the bracket holding our window blinds up. We learned from experience to not skip this step. Then the decorating would happen. Dad would sit back and let us know where there were holes that needed to be filled, my brother would hang a few decorations then be done and crash on the couch, then Mom and I would finish. We would pack away the boxes and turn down all the lights and ooh and ahh. It wasn’t abnormal to find our family just hanging out in the living room to be around the tree.
That was my tree history, so while I loved our little tree, I would still scroll through blog posts with Christmas house tours and see their big full trees and feel a bit sad. I would look at Christmas trees online and dream of the day when we could somehow manage to get a big tree, then remind myself that we didn’t have anywhere to put it.
And then we moved into our new house…
Last year after I got the tree up in what in my mind was “the Christmas tree corner” from the time that I designed the house, my heart sank a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I was SO thankful for that little tree in so many ways, but as I looked at it in our new house it just looked small. Where it had felt like it took up so much space in our old place, in our new place it looked like the corner swallowed it. I found myself scrolling through the tree choices online and wondering if there was any possibility of getting a new one for this year. Then I went to Canada and found myself looking at every tree department, and yet felt like I couldn’t justify the expense. That and my bags were full of Christmas presents and other things already.
I came home and decorated and that funk settled in. The kids and I decorated the tree, but I kept looking at it and rather than being excited about it I would see it overfilled with the ornaments we loved. Ornaments we had collected, ornaments we had made, and ornaments given to us by friends and family.
The kids after we decorated this year.
We finally got wifi working in our house (don’t even get me started on passing almost an entire year with cruddy internet) and I found myself sitting in the living room scrolling through online sites to look at their trees. I made myself a promise that if it works out for me to go to Canada next November like we’re hoping, that a new tree would be my main purchase. I already had a giant duffel bag all picked out for it’s transport.
Then yesterday happened.
I had to go to St. Marc to run some errands, one of which was to go to the pharmacy to stock up on Tylenol. To get to the pharmacy you have to walk through the open market, the area where they sell a lot of used items. Imagine a road wide enough for two lanes of traffic that is so filled with vendors and people just laying out their wares on the ground that there’s a path about two and a half feet wide to move through. It’s hot and congested and overwhelming with so many people and things and motos and…
I was walking through and was about halfway between where I entered and the pharmacy when a woman right next to me started putting a Christmas tree together. I literally almost walked into it as I dodged another person. It was taller than I was, and a bit smooshed from just being put in and out of a box every day. Basically it was assembled, but it wasn’t super pretty. I kept walking and went to the pharmacy.
The pharmacy is actually up a level from the street, and you can stand in line just inside the entrance and look down over the street. I could see the tree from where I was standing and kept looking at it and having conversations in my head about being content with what I had. I finished my purchase and decided that asking the price hurt no one.
I wandered up to it and the ladies selling it came over and asked if I was interested. I asked the price, then laughed at them because there was no way I was paying that much. I’ve learned that as a foreigner prices will always be at least double what they should be, so when I barter I always go down by at least half. In this case I started to walk away and they called me back and asked what price I would give them. I told them, and they laughed, but then one of them said, “You know how to give a good price!” This was all happening in Creole, and the fact that I offered a hard counter offer in fluent Creole earned me some respect, which always feels good. The main lady said she just couldn’t sell it for that, but then countered again with a price just a bit above what I had offered. I made a show of hemming and hawing while they made a show of fluffing the tree a bit. I saw the box for it sitting up on the roof of one of the storage sheds back off the street. I decided that since it was in pretty good shape, and taller than me, and looked decently bushy and came with a box I would buy it. I knew I could easily sell our old one, and fast, and put that money back towards the purchase. I handed over the equivalent of $60 US, they boxed it up, and I hauled it to my car.
When I got home I unpacked my groceries and changed, then got to work. Chris had to go our for a bit, so all this started while he was away. I started un-decorating the old tree, then set up the new one and began “fluffing” the lower branches. Then I started squealing a little bit. When I saw it on the street it was still smooshed together from being in the box and being packed away. As I started separating branches and bending them into place I realized that these were the nice branches, where some where tapered to look like new growth and others were more blunt to look like they’d be cut. I kept fluffing and got more giddy. I realized that in front of me I had a gem. What I thought would be a “make do” tree for a few more years, turned into a beautiful, pretty real looking, bushy tree. I was dancing around the living room in excitement. Chris came home as I was stringing lights on and obviously wanted to know what the heck was going on and gave me one of those “we don’t need this” looks, then left the room. I decided to not let that crush me and kept going.
I moved it in place, cleaned up the stray needles and put the tree skirt on, then started decorating. In the past few years I’ve done the bulk of the decorating, but set the kids personal ornaments aside for them to put on. This is how I save my sanity. This year we were working on the “don’t put one ornament right in front of another one, okay?” And I may have taken a whole bunch off the other day and rehung them because Alex kept moving them around. You know, in the midst of all the times where he actually climbed under the tree…
After I finished I took a break on the couch and started chatting with a friend, and then sold our old tree within two hours of taking the decorations off of it. Christmas trees are a hot commodity here where we have to bring everything in our luggage or pay shipping fees.
About that time Chris came back in and asked what I was up to. I told him I had just sold the old Christmas tree for $40, so once I took that off what I paid I had just got us a new, amazing Christmas tree for $20. And, because I’ve been checking out Christmas trees for the past few years I know that the tree I got would retail for about $250, if not more. I actually saw one that was as close as I could find today that was regularly $575 and on sale for $250! I decided I would err on the conservative side…
You guys, I got a $250 tree for $20!!! My ever practical husband had to concede that it was a screaming deal and he even said that it was a really pretty tree, which almost made me fall over. Most of all, he said, he realized having a happy wife goes a long way. Smart man :)
Just so you can see the difference, here’s the old tree all naked…
And here’s the new one…
As I was chatting with my friend and Chris things started to click for me. I was ridiculously happy and I realized that I had some really deep attachments to the whole tree thing that I didn’t realize, and that was why I was in such a funk. I had gotten to the point of feeling more homesick because I missed the whole big tree thing. As I looked at our new tree sitting in the tree corner in all it’s tall, bushy glory I realized that our house now felt more like a home, and less like we were just trying to do the best we could during the holidays.
When I got the old tree we spent one Christmas in Haiti, then travelled back to Canada for the next three, so it was less important then. It was just a “make due” option to help things feel festive while we anticipated our trip. I laughed at the fact that we got to put up two trees every year. We’ve now spent the last three Christmases in Haiti and know that this will be our norm for the most part. As I thought about what a Christmas tree means to me – all the happy memories, the celebration of the Christmas season, comfort, home – it was like a final layer of settling in fell into place for me.
I know that might all sound crazy, because it’s just a Christmas tree, but in a place where the only people who seem to do the same types of cultural things around Christmas that we do are other expats, this was a huge slice of normal that I desperately needed. And, I feel like it was a special little God given gift for me yesterday. Like God literally plopped that tree right in my path to the point where I literally walked into it. Something that while so unimportant in the grand scheme of things, healed a little place in my heart yesterday.
That also got me thinking about things from an expat/missions perspective, and I thought about all our friends who are here through the holidays and how we’ve all had to tweak our traditions to fit Haiti, and to find ways to blend what is important to us while we create new ones too. That’s another blog post though :)
The kids came home from school and freaked out in a good way, then decorated and pretended to hug the tree. When I look at the tree I see a decade of family memories already created…
A mercury glass heart – the ornament I bought the year Chris and I got married. Still one of my all time favorites.
A small olive wood cross from my friend Elisabeth, a burlap ornament with a Haiti Coke bottle cap from the first Christmas ladies craft day I planned a few years ago, and my metal Rudolph from the Apparent Project that creates jobs so Haitian parents can take care of their kids rather than giving them up for adoption.
A white clothes pin angel – the first ornament Olivia ever made. She was 3. A green popsicle stick star – the first ornament Alex ever made. He was 2. Glittery snowflakes to make me think of Canada.
One of the mini sweaters that I’ve knitted, because knitting makes me happy and makes me think of my Granny.
The Coca Cola ornament I got the year my friend Lindsay and I shared an apartment, the year before I moved to Haiti. Coca Cola was always something my mom stocked up on for the holidays when it went on sale for $0.99/2L bottle.
The sheep ornament Nanna and I picked out for Alex last month because Ba Ba Black Sheep was his favorite song as a baby/toddler, and he insisted on a Ba Ba Black Sheep cake for his 2nd birthday. He was so excited when he opened this guy.
The squirrel ornament I got in a girls club gift exchange when I was in grade 2 and the wood slice ornament I made in 2013.
As I was putting away the box with the extra ornaments (because, bigger tree!!) I thought about how much I’m going to look forward to pulling this baby out next year, and for many years after that. I have a feeling that I have a few people who will be right there with me. I love that my love for the holidays is carrying over to our kids because they have such huge enthusiasm for this stuff. Alex is so ridiculously expressive that I knew his reaction would just be the icing on the cake and I wasn’t disappointed. He shared a couple of awe filled it’s so beautifuls and has done some tree hugging of the non-protest variety. This morning when we were all snuggling on the couch looking at the tree I asked the kids again if they liked it and they very excitedly said they did, and then Alex followed it up with, “You know what else? I can’t climb under it!” I may have busted out laughing and admitted that thought had already crossed my mind…
Now the only thing I need to plan to bring back next year is more lights… ;)
© 2025 — Leslie Rolling