{"id":7428,"date":"2017-01-02T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T18:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7428"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:28","slug":"a-few-christmas-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7428","title":{"rendered":"A FEW CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was our fourth Christmas in Haiti. Haitian friends often assume that we will return to the States for Christmas. That WOULD be great &#8211; we would all enjoy seeing family and Melissa and the kids would enjoy seeing snow (No, not me) &#8211; but our family budget simply won&#8217;t allow for it. For the next best thing, these last two years we have pooled funds (thanks, Grandmas!) that would otherwise be spent on physical presents and put them towards a few days away in the Dominican Republic. We all enjoy the sand, the buffets, the endless caramel cappuccinos\u00a0and having someone else wash all the dishes.\u00a0But we&#8217;re always back home here in Vaudreuil by Christmas Day because we wouldn&#8217;t want to miss celebrating the birth of Christ in our adopted home. We&#8217;ve developed a few traditions over the past few years. A few are carryovers from when the kids were small and living in the States, but most have sprung up spontaneously since we moved to Haiti.We learned early on that cake is considered a very special treat here, so we take a bit of time on Christmas Eve to bake a few cakes to take to some special friends. These last two years, Sarah has worked hard to design the cakes, then Melissa bakes them and I decorate them.\u00a0This year, Sarah put her friend Kristina to the designing task as well:<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20161224_105621-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The finished designs:<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20161224_151853-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20161224_151745-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The following isn&#8217;t an established tradition because it is hit-or-miss, but this year a man brought a bucket of crabs to our front door for sale. I bought five and then remembered how much work they prove to be. The local crabs have the toughest, thickest shells you&#8217;ve ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20161224_165619-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20161225_122133-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After leaving the orphanage, we headed to deliver our first cake &#8211; to Ma Louis, our incredibly hard-working friend who shops the market for us once a week and cooks our dinner twice a week. We couldn&#8217;t keep everything together without her help.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20161228_164311-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks again for your support in keeping us here in Haiti! God bless you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was our fourth Christmas in Haiti. Haitian friends often assume that we will return to the States for Christmas. That WOULD be great &#8211; we would all enjoy seeing family and Melissa and the kids would enjoy seeing snow (No, not me) &#8211; but our family budget simply won&#8217;t allow for it. For the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7442,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions\/7442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}