Our first Christmas Day in Belize and Boxing Day in Englishtown

Christmas Day dawned warm and beautifully sunny, a novel experience for us.  We spent a quiet day together unpacking Dennis’ bags instead of presents.  We did have presents for each other though - mine for Dennis was a Belize activated cell phone and his for me was the hard won cell phone signal booster.  Sort of an anti-Gift of the Magi (by O. Henry).  

Our Christmas tree was a habanero pepper plant given to us by Joy that we decorated with our parrot ornament given to Dennis along with the Santa Claus snow globe and a skirt of "mosquito netting" at his retirement.

 Our special bash was on Boxing Day when we were joined by Chris and Sue and later by Martha.  Chris and Sue brought a Christmas brew by the Belikin Brewery of sorrel beer (delightful) and a real find in Belize - port!  They also brought some nice cheeses.  Dennis and I had been saving a very special bottle of cognac for over 6 years to celebrate our arrival in Belize.  We had bought the cognac in France while visiting some other friends connected to Belize – a story for another day.  We also had several bottles of Freixenet cava.  We cooked chicken breast fillets wrapped around goat cheese and a casserole of broccoli and cauliflower with cheese and sour cream.  Also served a lovely fresh green salad with tomatoes, onions, and green peppers and fresh baked bread. Martha made a spice cake that Dennis served with sautéed sweet yellow plantains in a reduction sauce of Kahlua with shavings of the locally produced Goss chocolate on top.  Now to those of you not living in a third world country, this may seem pedestrian fare, but in these parts, this is haute cuisine!  We started in the early afternoon and enjoyed food, drink, music (yea! Dennis brought down my Bose IPod speakers!), each other’s company, and then more of the same for many delightful hours.  Martha, whose husband we met back in 1999, and who we finally met in 2004 when she helped us find this very property, and Chris and Sue, who we met in 2005, are the folks who we have been anxious to join in Belize.  It was all the celebration and more that we had been looking forward to for 8 years.