TRAVEL | CHRISTMAS | HOLIDAYS

Christmas Looks A Little Different Everywhere We Go

Kicking off the Globetrotters December Writing Prompt

This month's writing prompt in Globetrotters is Christmas and Other Celebrations Around the World. Our intention with the prompt is to hear stories from people who have celebrated Christmas, Hanukkah, or other seasonal celebrations while traveling. Here is my contribution to the challenge. I hope it sparks some inspiration in you:)

Since we have now been traveling full-time for the past 5 years, my partner and I have had the fortune to celebrate Christmas in 5 different locations across the globe.

This year will be the sixth.

Currently, we are in Varna, Bulgaria where we have been having fun watching the city come to life with Christmas lights for the past couple of weeks. At first, I got excited and couldn’t wait to be part of the Northern Hemisphere for Christmas. Then I remembered that our plan is to head back down to Turkey soon, and we will probably completely miss Christmas this year.

Christmas isn’t really celebrated in Turkey due to its Muslim population.

While I’m okay with missing it, I really have been craving a good ol’ fashioned Christmas celebration and I yearn for a Christmas market and some hot mulled wine on the streets.

Maybe we will have to try and plan that for next year.

Many of our Christmases over the past 5 years have been in the tropics which, of course, doesn’t feel like Christmas to us. Growing up in Canada only brought Christmases that consisted of cold and snow. I mean Santa is from the North Pole, and he even drives a sleigh. Sleighs are meant for gliding over the snow and I’ll never understand how he navigates that thing on the sandy beaches and rough terrain of the tropics!

Costa Rica

It was in October of 2017 when we winged our way south to Costa Rica to start our nomadic journey. We were housesitting on the beach when Christmas rolled around. Of course, it was certainly not our typical Christmas celebration, and it surely didn’t feel like Christmas.

We shared the day with a fellow Canadian and his girlfriend (who is strangely enough from Bulgaria) whom we had met there. Being that he and his partner were vegetarian, we certainly had a different Christmas meal than we were used to. But it was delicious nonetheless.

Christmas day was spent frolicking on the beach and our friend decided that he wanted to get buried in the sand. Maybe this is the tropical version of making snow angels?

No, it certainly did not feel like Christmas in Costa Rica.

Guatemala

For Christmas 2018 we were again housesitting, this time in Guatemala. We were located on the east coast of Guatemala in a small town called Livingston. The community is water access only and we had to take a boat to get there. This area of Guatemala is inhabited by the Garifunas that came up from Trinidad so they don’t really celebrate Christmas.

However, we had a friend from the UK that we had met on the road who messaged us a few days before the special day, to see if we would mind if he came to stay with us. We heartily agreed since it’s always nice to have more people around for Christmas!

For our dinner, we were able to purchase 2 large chickens that we roasted. Plus we made as many of the fixings as we could. It turned out to be delicious and really did feel a bit Christmassy.

I wrote about our experience in the post below if you are interested in learning more about Livingston and its culture.

At this housesit, we were taking care of 3 cats, a rabbit, 6 chickens and 4 ducks. Since our friend was visiting, it was a great opportunity to try and get a family photo for the holidays. We somehow managed to get the indoor pets together to capture the special occassion. It was not an easy task!

Canada

In the fall of 2019, we flew back to Canada to visit our families. I also had planned to throw my parents a surprise 50th Wedding Anniversary party, which we did. Our intentions were to stay in Canada for just a month or 2 and to get out before the winter set in. However, a couple of friends were heading out to travel for the holidays and wanted us to housesit. So we decided to sit tight and leave when those commitments were finished. So again, we were housesitting for this Christmas.

This time it felt like a true Christmas. While leaving the house in charge of a neighbor for a couple of nights, we first stayed with friends at a hotel for Christmas Eve, then we drove to Chris’ mom's house where we had a wonderful Christmas feast.

This time it was certainly a true winter wonderland and I finally got to make my snow angel!

Istanbul, Turkey

In 2020, after spending 9 months in Morocco due to the covid lockdowns, we winged our way east to Istanbul. Shortly after arriving, we got a mural painting gig in a hostel near Taksim. We initially only planned to spend a couple of weeks in Istanbul, but one thing lead to the other and we ended up painting 4 different murals in the hostel and staying for over 2 months.

Initially, we weren’t sure if Turkey would be celebrating Christmas at all, but we did see some ornaments and festive cheer around the city.

On Christmas Eve we celebrated at the hostel with people from many different nationalities. Two Israeli guys gave a speech before we dug into the feast explaining that this was a special event for them since they had never celebrated Christmas before.

We all saw it as not just a religious holiday, but simply a reason to bring people together across all cultures and traditions.

It was a beautiful moment.

There were many nationalities present that evening including Colombia, Mexico, New Guinea, Pakistan, Israel, Syria, Iran, Poland and Taiwan. It was also the Taiwanese man’s birthday!

Maun, Botswana

Again, we were housesitting for Christmas in 2021. It’s interesting to note that until I wrote this post, I didn’t realize that we are usually housesitting over the Christmas holidays. This time we found ourselves in Maun, Botswana.

We had been staying in Uganda for the previous 7 months and made our way down to Botswana by train and bus over the course of 10 days. We had completed some big projects in a village in Uganda and after traveling quite quickly to get there, we were utterly exhausted when we arrived.

We housesat in Maun for 5 weeks and were complete hermits, only venturing out to purchase food and have the odd lunch around town.

It was the first time in more than a year that we had access to full liquor stores with a huge selection to choose from. So needless to say, we partied a bit and dare I say, got drunk, a few times during the holiday period.

Hello Baileys and coffee!

We arrived at the housesit at the beginning of December and before leaving, the owner asked us if we would want to put up Christmas decorations. At that time, we were so tired that we couldn’t fathom bothering, so she never did show us where they were stored, which I later regretted a little bit. However, she did give us a small jar of candies that had a little bit of tinsel taped to the top, so this became our singular Christmas decoration.

We spent the day completely hunkered down and didn’t go anywhere. The only visitors we had was the bunch of birds that we regularly fed and a busy squirrel running around in the trees. Plus, we hung out with Mimi, the cat, and the whole reason that we were there to housesit in the first place.

Before leaving, the owners mentioned that they had a huge collection of DVDs and a portable player that we could hook up to our laptop. Having not watched movies in literally years, we had fun enjoying some oldies.

And I was really excited when I discovered that they also had a selection of Christmas classics.

While it was certainly not cold in Botswana, and it didn’t really feel like Christmas, we made the best of it and surrounded ourselves with as much Christmas cheer as we could muster.

While I grew up in a very traditional way where each Christmas meant celebrating with family over lots of presents and too much food, I have also come to enjoy the low-key way that we now celebrate. After all, to us, it is just another day on the calendar.

These days, the over-commercialization and over-consumption of Christmas have me cringing and I find myself shying away from giving it all too much attention.

But, that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy a bit of Christmas cheer here and there.

While we will be missing Christmas again this year, and at this point have no idea where we will be at that time, other than in Turkey, I’m happy that we got to witness Christmas coming to life in both Varna and here at the hostel.

And we will spend our next couple nights here wandering around the city and looking at the new displays of lights that seem to pop up each day, taking in as much of the Christmas spirit as we can before we go.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful December filled with happiness and joy, and I look forward to reading about your Christmas (and other) celebrations from around the world!

xo Jill

To jump on board with the prompt, check out Anne Bonfert’s challenge post below:

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