Christmas in Santo Domingo - 1st Year

I have often imagined skipping off to the Caribbean for Christmas to avoid all the hubbub of the season, but this is not how I imagined it. 

Although the ocean is visible not far out our apartment window, the nearest beach is about 40 miles away. So our first Caribbean Christmas isn't about escaping to the sun and sand. 

Here in the DR, Christmas begins sometime before Thanksgiving. There is no particular stigma attached to starting before Thanksgiving because Thanksgiving is, after all, a US holiday. There seems to be a lot of excitement about Christmas, but as near as I can tell, it's not really so much about presents. There is more evidence of Jesus here than at home, but it's not really all that much about Jesus either. I think it's more like Mardi Gras.


Where we work at the Junta Central, a government building, they have this interesting nativity scene displayed in the front entry. It is not something one would find in a government office in the US these days. So, we have had this little reminder of Christmas for quite a while. 

Shortly after our arrival, we found artificial Christmas trees for sale at La Sirena. Being warned that stuff disappears fast, we decided to grab one and along about Thanksgiving we assembled this little tree in our living room. It isn't much compared to home, but it has served its purpose faithfully and we have enjoyed plugging in the lights every evening. A most satisfactory little tree.  





Across the street to the north from our apartment is the temple. Also across the street and next to the temple is the park. I don't know the name, but it's quite the happenin' place at Christmas time. During the day you see a whole lot of tropical looking trees, providing a lush green canopy over the sidewalks, fountains, benches and everything else in the park. When it gets dark, after about 6:30 or so, the lights come on. It's pretty cool.

I'm not sure about the marketing, but Santa, drinking Coke, says "I also believe in you."

These interesting LED lights are wrapped around everything and really light up the park.

 

Sherrie can't pass up the opportunity to get a picture with Santa Claus.

 

We work with Elder and Sister McIntyre at the Junta taking pictures.

The temple is a pretty amazing building for Santo Domingo, and provides quite a contrast to the very loud attractions of the park at Christmas.

By one corner of the temple (the side closest to our apartment) is a simple nativity scene. We kind of like walking by here, especially the way it is lit up at night.

On Christmas morning we got up early and walked over to the MTC, which shares the grounds with the temple. There are 45 new young missionaries celebrating their first Christmas away from home. You might imagine how a bunch of tender hearted senior missionary couples would feel about that, especially since many of them are missing family. So, at 7:30 Christmas morning all the senior missionaries gathered in the Family History room at the MTC and assembled 45 little trays of treats. 


When all was in readiness, and the young missionaries were all seated in the cafeteria, all the senior missionaries, laden with goodies, wandered down the hall to the cafeteria, singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". Apparently we were not unexpected, because after we gave them their treats and finished singing our three (way too slow) Christmas songs in Spanish, it seems they were prepared and sang a couple of songs for us. It was pretty much fun and a little touching.

After that little adventure we wandered back home and had breakfast and our own little Christmas party.

Before

After

 

We are pretty grateful these days to be able to put such things out even for a few minutes. The bugs have not come back yet. (knock on wood)

A little later in the afternoon we went to dinner with some other missionary couples. We had ham and cheesy potato casserole. Yum. And for dessert Sherrie brought this really great dessert stuff. I don't know what it is called. In the past she has always made it with chocolate, but in honor of the season she used cherry stuff and pistachio pudding. It was way good. The picture is a little piece that was left over because we forgot to get a picture of it earlier.

Because apparently one can never have too many nativity displays, we have acquired one that is probably uniquely Dominican. The figures are made of metal and then hand painted. I think the three wise men are carrying desserts. Most unusually, the shepherd is accompanied by a sheep, a cow and a giraffe. I'm not really sure what that's all about, but your collection of nativity scenes is not complete until you have one with a giraffe.

Merry Christmas!