An Island Christmas!

Here's a peek at what Christmas looks like around here!

Handmade Christmas stockings made of traditional, Dominica madras... Rasta Santa ornaments... Sorrel.... A mini tree from a Chinese store in Roseau with a homemade, island madras star.  And half of the ornaments were ripped off of a hideous wreath from the Chinese store and glued onto the tree with a hot glue gun.  The tree even has a cute, little, madras tree skirt!

It's a simple little Christmas this year, but we're loving it!  We've been cooking, listening to Christmas tunes, and watching lots of Dexter.  And going on adventures, of course!

Also - it's cold here... for Dominica, at least!  Last week it 74 degrees one evening, and I slept in long sleeves and PJ pants.  In the summer, it's usually 88 degrees at night (ahhh!), but this time of year, it cools down to 78-81 degrees in the evenings.  So 74 is basically freezing!

I am in love with our Dominican Christmas Stockings!  My friends Kristen and Crystal (who are both quite the Martha Stewarts!) are also on the island for Christmas, and they came up with genius idea of buying the traditional, Dominican madras fabric and making Christmas stockings out of it!  They were nice enough to include me in this, so we spent some time picking out our fun fabrics at the fabric store in Roseau.  Also, I can't sew... so they

made the entire things for me

 helped me out with the sewing!  The stockings turned out awesome.  I just want to add a strip of ric rac across the top (with my glue gun , of course!) to finish them off.  Thanks girls, y'all are the best!

While working on our stockings we also made rasta santas like some awesome ones that we saw at the Ross Art & Craft Fair.  Mine is in the collage above, but below are the real deals with the real rasta who made them... hilarious!

We've also been making and drinking lots of sorrel.  Sorrel is a traditional Caribbean Christmas drink made from boiling de-seeded sorrel blossoms with water and spices like cinnamon and ginger.  You let the boiled mixture cool and steep overnight, and then in the morning, strain out the blossoms and spices and add some sugar.  It is delicious!  We have been drinking it plain and mixing it with red wine for sorrel sangria.

And that, friends, is how we do Christmas in Dominica.  Simple yet festive!  And a little bit funny.  It's perfect!