Unchristmasy But Lovely Christmas 2021 on Ilha de Santa Catarina

Most families create their own holiday traditions for Diwali, Hannukah, Christmas, you name it.

Feng and I accidentally adopted a very unchristmasy version of Christmas, the kind that wouldn’t get the Vatican’s blessing. Even Hollywood wouldn’t approve because most of the time, a snowy landscape, the traditional family dinner, presents and Christmas decorations are missing from the script. Forget about baby Jesus, I don’t think we’ve ever mentioned it.

We spent our first Christmas together in San José, Costa Rica, back in 2001—Feng cooked spaghetti and meat sauce while I was fighting cockroaches because our hostel was… questionably cozy. A few years later, in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, we rented surf boards on Christmas Day. I vaguely remember a boozy Christmas spent in a hostel in Rainbow Beach, Australia, where I learned to play with fire devil sticks, a quiet one in Santiago, Chile… and several in Ottawa eating cake with chopsticks while arguing with my in-laws.

Last year, we spent Christmas in Rio de Janeiro, and it rained a lot. Since we had already spent a rainy Christmas in Rio a few years earlier, we’ve finally come to the conclusion that the weather isn’t great around Christmas in Rio and that maybe we should go somewhere else.

So we went straight to Ilha de Santa Catarina, one of our favourite places in Brazil. Feng found a really nice apartment on Airbnb too, lucky us, three days in a brand-new condo.

We arrived on December 23, just in time to go grocery shopping and buy everything we needed for three days—I don’t think I’ve ever had a receipt that long, but most items were veggies, fruits, and cooking essentials.

We spent Christmas Eve on Praia do Campeche and Christmas Day in the south of the island. Mark had already gotten his presents a few days before flying to Brazil, so Christmas was just a nice meal with our favourite unchristmasy foods—smoked salmon for me, pasta for Mark, meat for Feng and cake for all of us.

I like our Christmas “tradition.”