Xmas Eve

The girls found a drawer in our house full of polly pockets to play with horray!

The neighbors chicken hatched thirteen chicks!

We did the wash outside which was fun.

TL loves taking care of the baby next door.

Nothing like being barefoot on Christmas eve!

You know its cold in Belize when the coconut oil solidifies.

Later in the day another woman came over to the shop to show us how to make the traditional Belizean Christmas dish "Relleno."

Two pounds of ground pork is mixed with finely diced tomato, bell pepper, onion,  Recado spice and other spices, hard boiled egg and cooked up.  Then a whole chicken is stuffed with the mixture and boiled in a HUGE pot outside over the fire in a sauce of Recado Negro and spices, making it black-looking on  the outside.  We couldn't wait until Christmas day so we could try some!

Then Jessicas husband brought home his Christmas gift from his aunt- a HUGE pot of tamales!  The pots here are so amazing, I love them.  Serious cooks around here!  Wow.  The tamales were great.  The thing I love about Belozean cooking is that they always use the whole chicken.  Even the tamales had chicken-on-the-bone inside as opposed to just boneless breast meat.  Yum!

The shop was all decked out with christmas lights.

Later in the night we were invited for cake to another house.  I was asking the father of the house what happens on Christmas day- Presents? Santa?

No, he said.  His children would not be getting any presents this year- most kids don't.  If parents have a little extra money at the end of the year they might buy their kids one present, usually a practical one like a bike.  Some kids have relatives in the states that send presents but mostly Christmas involves a good meal with the family and respect for the life of Jesus Christ.

What?  No mad commercialism?  No plastic crap nobody needs?  How do you possibly survive here??

What a breath of fresh air.  I wish Christmas looked like this at home.