Many Caribbean Islanders in Southern California are skipping trips back to their homelands to celebrate Christmas traditions with family and friends. They can still reminisce about favorite holiday memories, though, and the interruption to regular holiday travel does not mean they have abandoned their Caribbean Christmas traditions.
Indeed, whether Caribbean's are at home or abroad for the holidays, they find a way to add their special touch and enthusiasm. Children are expected to do an intensive cleaning, polishing and rearrangement of furniture. The best dinnerware, tablecloths, bedspreads and curtains are removed from storage trunks. The windows are cleaned, curtains are put up and tables decorated with tablecloths and Christmas flowers.
While making Christmas special with this backbreaking refurbishing, children look forward to families stopping by with candies and toys. Visitors are entertained with food and drinks that are specific to the holiday season. Caribbeans pump out the favorite brew of homemade sorrel and ginger-beer, as well as homemade rum punch. For dessert, there will be a fruit cake or Christmas pudding made with raisins and minced dried fruits that were soaked in white rum for months. In Trinidad, no Christmas is complete without the very labor intensive banana leaf wrapped cornmeal pie called pastelles. For Trinidad, Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean, curried goat, baked chicken, roast pork, steamed cabbage and carrots, and rice and beans are traditional entrees.
"There can never be Christmas without sorrel and fruit cake," said Kemishe Walsh, at People's Choice Jamaica restaurant at the corner of Rimpau Avenue and Slauson Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Asked about a dazzling array of lights that permeated every corner of the restaurant, she replied: "Its' Christmas and the decorations give me a feeling of being in the Caribbean."
Guests at the local Trinidadian restaurant, Caribbean Treehouse, located at 1226 Centinella Avenue in Inglewood, were overflowing with excitement when describing the island custom of making a Christmas tree from branches gathered from the yard and attached to a pipe. Singing Christmas carols in the town is a tradition throughout the Caribbean for children and adults alike. In Trinidad, a major part of the festive celebration is Parang, Christmas songs that are sung in Spanish or to a Soca beat. In Jamaica, Christmas carols are sung to a reggae beat.
Other traditions that are unique to the Caribbean include the practice of a Christmas Grand Market and Junkanoo. The main town in most sections of Jamaica will have a Christmas market on the day and night before Christmas. It's typically an outdoor market to purchase gifts, fresh fruits and vegetables. It is a special treat for children dressed in their best clothing to accompany parents to this Christmas market.
Junkanoo consists of a group of masked revelers who take part in a parade dancing to the beat of drums. The group includes stilt walkers who appear as tall as trees and buildings. Onlookers enjoy the various antics of the Junkanoo performers, and children sometimes are scared by the exotic costumes and dances.
Sheannette Virtue is a writer for Carib Press.
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