Christmas in Belize

It would be our first Christmas in Belize because we had gone back to Sarasota the year before.

Shopping was not easy. Stores had neither the quantity nor the quality gifts I was used to, and the children’s highly specific Santa requests complicated matters.

Carli wanted a sewing machine. I found a charming small one for her. For some unimaginable reason, she also wanted a cow. Ro-Mac’s, our first supermarket, a modest but well-run store, came to the rescue. Their Christmas toy offerings included a charming farm scene, complete with barn (to be assembled), fencing, and assortment of plastic animals, including the required cow.

Alex had his heart set on a book about King Arthur, fifty-pages long (specified). None was to be found. A mother’s frantic search was rewarded by a metal medieval castle (to be assembled) with enough plastic figures—kings, knights, mounted and afoot, in various stages of battle, ladies fair, archers, foot soldiers—to stage whatever scene his imagination asked. The day before Christmas I found a simple King Arthur story book with handsome colored illustrations. The combination of castle and book was accepted by Alex, despite the lack of fifty pages.

 

This was our first experience with Christmas trees in Belize. The government cut scrub pines and brought them into the city just before Christmas day. They were displayed in the Holy Redeemer school yard. Bucher bought the largest and fullest he could find, but it was a sorry excuse for a tree to his Christmas-fanatic wife who had grown up with the scented luxuriance of Michigan pines.

Bucher put the tree up, guying it with several wires to keep it in position. The children and I got out our precious traditional lights and ornaments, and decorated the tree. Next day we had our first meeting with what we came to call “The Christmas Bush.” Overnight the tree had shrunk in on itself, acquiring a rounded, rather than pointed, shape. No matter; it was up, it was gaily decorated, it was ours.

Later I saw huge and handsome fresh trees in friends’ homes, trees that stood boldly upright, their tapered limbs topped by star or angel held stoutly erect. I learned that these trees were cut from private lands. They were either larger or different varieties—or both—than the trees we bought on the street.

 

Callie Young had gone to the States to be with her father for the holidays. For business reasons Ford could not get away, so we invited him to spend Christmas Eve with us. We did not think to warn him that Christmas Eve equals “to be assembled.”

We had supper with two excited children. There was a moment of crisis when they realized that there was no mantle from which to hang stockings.

Bucher produced some cord, secured it to the bookcase, and hung up the two large, beautifully embroidered and appliquéd felt stockings that my mother had made for the children.

Alex and Carli went off to bed happily enough when asked to do so, under the assumption that the sooner they retired, the sooner they could arise to their gifts.

 

Ford, Bucher and I had a leisurely drink while we waited for the children to fall asleep. Then Ford, something to his horror, was co-opted to the business of assembling Christmas toys. I filled stockings with the great pile of small gifts I had squirreled away through the year. Mother came in for her annual mental scolding for designing the children’s stockings with side gussets that allowed them to expand to hold an incredible amount. Apples were not available, but I stuffed an orange into each toe to help take up space.

By the time I finished, the men were laughing and fussing and disagreeing about the right way to make metal castles and plastic farms hold together. Fortunately, the three of us succeeded in erecting two charming scenes to surprise the children the coming Christmas dawn.