I'm Dreaming of a White (Sand Beach) Christmas

Being the hottest part of the year here, Christmas didn’t really feel like Christmas. Where was the hot chocolate? The ugly Christmas sweaters? The evergreen trees next to the roaring fire? Where was the constant Christmas music blaring out of every store and on every radio station? How could it be Christmas when I lie in bed every night trying very hard not to let any part of my body touch any other part of my body because it’s just so darn hot?

Evan (a Carleton friend, and RPCV from China, pictured right), came and stayed with me over the holidays, and we did our best to bring a taste of American Christmas to Vanuatu. Namely, making Christmas cookies, and gaving out presents to my host family.

On December 23rd, we followed a truck down to North Ambae, to stay with Kathleen in her village for a night. We brought up cookie making supplies; sprinkles and frosting included, of course, as well as Kathleen's Christmas present (A bag of potatoes. Turns out I used up all my creativity on her birthday present...although she had been talking about how it wasn't Christmas without mashed potatoes. Sorry Kathleen!)

We woke up Christmas Eve morning with one goal in mind. Making Christmas cookies! Step one, find an oven. Turns out, there are no ovens in Kathleen's village, and the closest one was about a 30 minute walk away, down a steep, slippery hill. So no luck there. After asking some of the mamas, we found one who was excited to help us out in exchange for our Christmas cookie recipe. She came over, we put on some Christmas music, and the fun began!

Started out in the typical fashion, mixing ingredients, tasting, adding more flour and sugar, mixing again, adding more flour again...until we found the right consistency and taste. Then, we rolled it out. teaching the Headmaster's wife (who was helping us, and whose name I never actually caught...) how to roll it out thinly and evenly. 

Kathleen had graciously purchased the sprinkles, rolling pin, and cookie cutters in Vila, so the next step was, of course, to cut out the cookies. When they were cut, we placed them in the giant saucepan (borrowed for the occasion) that would be our kiaman (Bislama word meaning fake or lying) oven.

Now came the interesting part, baking the cookies! The headmaster's wife had made a fire in Kathleen's kitchen with a lot of stones piled up in it. When the fire had died down, she moved the wood to the side, placed the pot on the stones, and piled the embers on top of it. Then it was time to wait!

After two batches, the fire had died down, and the stones weren't hot enough anymore to cook our cookies. So Jacob made a fire on top of the pot. When that didn't work, we took the pot off the fire, and Cynthia remade it, reheating the stones.

We cooked our last two batches, and about 6 hours after having started, our cookie making adventure was complete!

After a smol spel (short break) Evan and I walked over to my Uncle Ramson's house, cookies in hand, to meet up with the rest of my family.

Waking up on Christmas morning, swatting mosquitoes, and already sweating at 6:30 in the morning was not exactly how I would have pictured myself spending Christmas 5 years ago. But even so far from family in the States, it was nice to know that I was spending Christmas with my second family, here in Vanuatu.

I won't go into too much detail about the day, as it was almost entirely spent in the kitchen. My dad killed a pig and 4 chickens, we cleaned, gutted, and cooked those, along with making rice, popcorn, laplap, soup, and various other island treats. We decorated and ate cookies, gorged ourselves on the other food, talked and talked and talked, and generally made merry.

I'll end this already too long post with some pictures from the day. (Warning to vegetarians and such, lots of pictures of animals being prepared to get eaten)

Dinner! 

Cleaning the pig

Burning off the last of the hair

Cleaning the chicken

Putting the pig on the spit

Roasting the pig

Mmmm...pig...

Nelson's birthday is the 27th, so we had cake to celebrate while the whole family was together

The spread!

The spread (part 2)!

Evan demonstrating how to decorate Christmas cookies

Giving it a try!

Even though it wasn't exactly an American Christmas, I feel lucky to have gotten the chance to spend a lovely day with my new family, and learn about a different kind of Christmas tradition.

Bonus Christmas post: meet my family here!