Tropical Trimmings: The Holidays, DR Style

As an American in a foreign culture, home traditions suddenly become a cushion of comfort to cling to-- something we, as the international population of the DR, can gather around and celebrate regardless of the fact that we're as far from family and familiarity as could be imaginable. That's the power of tradition, I suppose. Customs carry a certain amount of "home" with them, so turkey and mashed potatoes (pavo y pure de papas) prepared on November 27 this year went a long way to unite us and remind us of how thankful we are that we can do that.

The Walker family and the Casa Grande staff-- our Thanksgiving family this year. I'm thankful for all of them!

Pumpkin dump cake deliciousness, anyone? As maybe you can tell, we had some good desserts!

Darren makes fantastic apple pie.

This is Mark. Mark has a knife. That turkey didn't have a chance.

Dominicans make a lot smaller deal out of Halloween than the US does, and they don't celebrate Thanksgiving (although Black Friday is becoming a traffic-stopping event). So down here? Christmas decorations have been going up since mid-October. Little lights and fake evergreenery adorn the wood-slat or cinder-block houses, arousing the holiday spirit.

Or pop bottles in the shape of an evergreen work, too! We saw it lit up at night, and it was kinda pretty.

Stores and truck beds both are making the most of the season. I even saw a guy wandering through traffic selling blinky Santa hats at a stoplight, but it was dark, so unfortunately I didn't have the best photo op for that.

The airport is also expecting the arrival of baby Jesus.

Although they're having a hard time predicting if His arrival is on time or delayed. Also, I keep thinking that snow belongs in this picture somehow. But I guess weather delays don't affect Him much.

To the weather's credit, it's actually been cooling off to upper 60s at night. Though maybe that isn't quite freezing, a blizzard did blow into the Casa Grande dining room with the arrival of December... Pictures of that didn't quite turn out, but it looked kinda like this:

As fun as it's been to watch the holiday spirit unfold down here, I confess I'm really looking forward to family and friend time in Michigan, Arizona, and Colorado at the end of this month. If you're in any of those areas, I'd love to see you! Just give me a holler and we'll see what we can figure out!

In the meantime... merry Christmas!