Christmas Trip

As December of our first year in Belize approached, we decided to go home to Sarasota for Christmas. Bucher and Alex flew to Tampa in the air freighter with our ASA friends. I followed a more complicated commercial route with Carli and Sonia.

My two excited companions and I arrived in Mérida on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico in the early afternoon. We checked into the now-familiar Gran Hotel de Mérida with its colorful tile work and heavily carved mahogany.

I settled Carli and Sonia for much-needed naps and went off to shop. Browsing through the quaint little shops on the streets near the hotel was a happy dream. I returned to the hotel a couple of hours later with what I considered an absolute treasure of Mexican crafts for Christmas gifts.

We flew into Miami the following evening. Sonia, looking out the window of the plane at the sparkling lights crisscrossing the ground below for as far as one could see, asked incredulously, “All this is Miami, Florida?”

I replied in the affirmative.

“All this is just Miami, Florida?” Sonia reconfirmed in awe.

Bucher met us just outside Customs. Our exhausted Carli, clutching her cherished satin-covered pillow, rushed toward him. An alert Customs guard yelled, suspecting a common smuggling ruse, grabbed at her unsuccessfully, and signaled me to capture the speeding child. He examined both Carli and the pillow carefully before smiling an apology and letting her pass through to her waiting father.

We were traveling light. Both Carli and I had clothes in Sarasota so I had packed only overnight necessities. Sonia had brought a small, soft bag with her things, and I had put it into my weekender with ours to save having extra things to handle. The only other item was a bottle of Scotch that Bucher had suggested I buy in bond as we left because it was so much cheaper in British Honduras than in Florida.

The Customs officer looked at my documentation and noted that we were a party of three.

“Where is the rest of your luggage?” he asked.

“This is all we have,” I replied.

“For three people?” he queried in disbelief.

“Yes, Sir,” I assured him with what I hoped was commendable respect and politesse.

“But your declaration shows a bottle of whiskey. Where is it?” the suspicious officer challenged.

“In the suitcase,” I replied.

“This I gotta see,” the Customs man said as he motioned to me to open the bag. When he had investigated its meager contents to his satisfaction, he grinned at me and apologized, “I never woulda believed it.”

John Innes, our Siesta Key neighbor, thoughtfully had flown Bucher down to Miami in his plane to meet us. We had a beautiful moonlit flight back to Sarasota. Carli slept the entire way. It was exciting to all of us finally to find ourselves back in our beloved, barely used home.

 

My parents came down from Michigan to spend Christmas with us. Mother was terrified of flying, so they arrived by train, to the children’s delight. Planes were routine to them, but a train was something from a book.

Mother and Dad were ecstatic to see their grandchildren, impressed by the house, unbelieving that we intended to return to the far-off, exotic country we inexplicably had fallen in love with.

 

The children were overjoyed at having their grandparents with us. We were an early “nuclear family” and all were aware of what we lacked in not being surrounded by relatives. Dad treated Alex like a contemporary, discussing engineering sorts of things. Mother had endless ideas for stories or activities for both children. She was an inspired kindergarten teacher—her academic training—though she taught only sporadically. Through friends, Bucher and I arranged for Sonia to meet people, so she had activities of her own during her ample free time.

 

When it was time for Mother and Dad to start back to Grand Rapids, Mother announced that the children “needed” to ride on a train. She told us (there was no asking involved) that she and Dad would take the children with them as far as the next stop, Bradenton, a few miles away. We could meet the train and collect them there.

Alex and Carli were overwhelmed with excitement, dressed carefully for their fifteen-minute ride, and disappeared into the compartment with their grandparents with all the poise of world travelers.

Bucher and I did a brief errand, then drove the short distance to Bradenton, located the train station, and settled down to wait. No train. The waiting room was locked and there was no one in the ticket office. We waited. I could see my babies hurtling northward on iron wheels, lost forever. Bucher, somewhat more practical about the matter, knocked loudly on the ticket window.

A pleasant, mustached face appeared, and at Bucher’s carefully modulated inquiry about two missing children, reported, “They aren’t missing at all. They’re right here. You hadn’t arrived when the train came through so your parents left them with me for you to collect. I told them it wouldn’t be any trouble; I have eight of my own.”

The ticket agent disappeared around a corner and emerged quickly, shooing Alex and Carli ahead of him. They said an affectionate farewell, we gave him our relieved thanks, and we all piled into the car for the drive back to Sarasota. Alex and Carli talked the entire way home. Correcting each other and piling event on event, they retold the tale of their magical journey.

 

Packing to return to Belize was a more complicated project than it had been for our first departure. This time we took all the things we had wished we had taken the before.

We left the house with an agent, asking her to rent it. I glanced wistfully at its space, its pristine modernity, the great screened yard and private gardens that melded indoors with out. Still, I was as excited as Bucher and the children about returning to our funny, quaint, little beloved Belize.

A year or so later we made the final commitment to our new land and sold the Sarasota house.