It’s Christmas time once again and in the Caribbean we have some very distinct ways of celebrating the season. Here are a few from around the region.
In Dominica, one of my favorite Christmas time traditions is “bursting bamboo.” I feel as though I'm in the middle of a world war, as I hear the loud bomb-like noise coming from the area. Traditionally bamboo bursting commences a celebratory activity. A hole is made on one of the ends of a piece of bamboo, and when you add some kerosene, light a match and put it through the hole in the bamboo you've got yourself a deafening noise! So around the villages at this time of year you might very well hear that loud noise. While this is fun to do with the right know-how, it can be very dangerous. So please proceed with caution if you want to try your own bamboo bursting.
In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, if you find yourself humming the tune “Twelve days of Christmas”, you’ll soon realize that you need to subtract three days from the song. From December 16th to 24th, nine mornings before Christmas, locals participate in the annual Nine Mornings Festival, which spans nine days of festivities from 4 a.m. to dawn. Christmas ‘Vincy’ style is a unique celebration and this particular festival ensures that Vincentians have a distinctive story to tell.
Locals wake in the early morning and take part in a multitude of activities including church services, fetes (parties), beach limes, street concerts or go to the capital of Kingstown to take in competitions that include singing and fun competitions such as speech making, beer drinking and banana eating, crying, laughing, ‘ring play’ games and story telling. Imagine dancing, caroling, and taking in the sound of steel pan bands and other music bands in the wee hours of the morning. In the rural areas, the final morning of the festivity usually ends with a steel band “jump-up”. In recent years, people have taken to the ‘lighting up’ of towns, villages, commercial buildings, churches and private homes.
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It is my husband and my first Christmas in Dominica, we are looking forward to celebrating with a lot of the friends we have made throughout the year. We also have a puppy that we bred called Tipe, Tippy for short, whose first Christmas on Earth it is, so celebrations all the way around.
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