#70 Spend Christmas in another country

As today is the 12th night and the day that we take all our Christmas decorations down, I thought I'd mark it by looking at thing to do #70 - Spending Christmas in another country.

Well, we spent this last Christmas in Wales, which is kind of another country (well, a Principality actually) but we spent the Christmas before in Belize which is perhaps more worthy of discussion here!

Our time in Belize formed part of a 3 month exploration of Central America, starting in Panama City in October 2008 and ending in Mexico City in January 2009. We didn't particularly choose to be in Belize in time for Chrimbo, it just kind of worked out that way. We stayed in a town called Placencia which is at the end of a peninsula so surrounded by beaches. As we weren't going to have any presents to open we treated ourselves to a lush apartment for the festive period.



We started the day feeling a bit fuzzy round the edges after cocktails and live music at a beach bar on Christmas Eve, so, after phoning home and speaking to our families we went down into the town to meet up with travelling buddies, Kate and Bec. We spend the rest of the day playing games at our apartment in proper Christmas fashion. Except we had beans on toast for lunch which wasn't very Christmassy. But surprisingly yummy! And anyway we were booked in to a nice restaurant for dinner that night with another couple we'd met travelling through Belize, Dave and Carol. So the 6 of us dined together and celebrated Christmas with almost nothing familiar or festive around us! No turkey or roast potatoes for us. Bec is from Australia so she was after her traditional dinner of lobster, and we felt it would have been rude not to get involved!



It was a nice day, but really nothing like Christmas at all. Which I think was a good thing. Me and the husband are both lovers of a good family Christmas and we found being so far away from them a lot harder than we anticipated. Being in a Caribbean country with no decorations or carols meant there were less opportunities for nostalgia and comparison to creep in, so it didn't feel as poignant. Had we been in Austria or somewhere with a more traditional feel I think that would actually have been harder. As it was we were but a few weeks from seeing everyone again and it meant we enjoyed this last Christmas even more!

So, I can tick off thing to do #70 with a pink star!