Tag: Christmas

Not a Christmas tree?

We don't celebrate Christmas. My wife is Hindu and I'm a Deist. We're raising our kids with Hindu traditions but allowing them to find their own path.

When our kids started school we made a pointed decision to teach them about Hindu traditions and customs to help give them a cultural identity. This is important to children especially when they are surrounded by a more dominant culture.

We started celebrating Diwali with Bhavna's family. The Hindu calendar is based on lunar cycles, so Diwali either occurs in October or November of the year. Each year we make Diwali a big deal in our family. We've got Christmas to compete with so we make Diwali a vey big deal.

Since Diwali is colloquially known as the "festival of lights", we decorate our home with Christmas tree lights and small electronic tea lights -- a substitute for the traditional open flame diyas. We clean out our home and prepare delicious foods.

The kids know that Diwali is the time of year for gift giving and receiving. This is the time for wish list.

Despite all that our kids want to feel included in the events going on in the larger culture around them. So, each year we setup and decorate a Christmas tree. It has no religious significance to the kids. They just like the twinkling lights. Over the years they've collected little decorative trinkets to place on the tree. Each one represents some milestone in our lives. The Thomas the Tank Engine phase, the “I made it in school” stage, the Pokémon phase (okay that one never ended), the cute panda and fairy princess phase, etc.

So guess this isn't so much a Christmas tree as much as it's a “down memory lane” tree.

Happy Holidays!

Cheese! Snap, edit and post in an instant.

It sometimes amazes the tools I have at my fingers tips for doing things that a few years ago just were not possible. This photo of my two-month-old niece was taken last night. Her aunties were having a great time dressing her up. I quickly grabbed my Nikon and fired off a few shots. Babies aren't the most co-operative subjects so this is the best photo of the few I shot. The aunties ( and uncles ) loved the photograph so I was obliged to share.

A few years ago, sharing would have meant, waiting until I got home to import the photo to my computer, doing some selective editing, launching the email app and sending off an attachment. But now, now I can do that entire process in just a few minutes.

The process was quick and simple. I attached the iPad Camera Connection Kit to my iPad and imported the photo to the Photos apps. I then edited the photo in Snapseed, cropping and adding some selective blurring. I saved the processed image back to the Photos apps and added it to an existing Photo Stream -- one I had created a few weeks after my niece was born. The Photo Stream is shared with all the immediate family1. If the family member has an iPhone or iPad ( there is at least one in each household ) with iCloud enabled they get a notification. If that family member has Mac with iPhoto2 they can sync a copy of the photo to their library. Even better, if they have an Apple TV they can watch the photos via their big flatscreen HDTV. Family members who haven't become wise to Apple products can still view the photos via a ... browser.

I could have taken the photo with my iPhone 5 and shared directly with them but I wanted to use the more powerful features of my DSLR. The iPad, iCloud and the iPad Camera Connection Kit enabled me to make my DSLR photography as instant as I want it to be.

  1. I could just have easily shared the photo to Facebook but Photo Stream allows the full resolution image to be downloaded. I also don't have to be concerned about privacy. ↩
  2. OS X Mountain Lion, iPhoto '11, and a free iCloud account are required. ↩

West Indian Eggnog

Growing up in the British West Indies (Caribbean) in St. Vincent, Bequia, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, I experienced Christmas very differently than the way it is in Central New Jersey1. In the islands I lived in, Christmas trees were always artificial (including face snow! ) and people tended to visit family and friends for drinks and merriment. It was a time for Church, to be specific Catholic Church. Other than that, Christmas day was just like any other festive2 day in the West Indies — breezy and sunny with the possibility of rum.

Bhavna and her family enjoy3 the festive nature of Christmas and this year we are getting together at her sister’s home. My niece, Maya, is the party planner and the dress code is pyjamas. We’ve all got the day off anyway so why not? My nephew’s birthday — Rohan — is the 23rd and my father-in-law’s birthday is the 27th so there are other reasons to get together.

Bhavna asked me about West Indian Christmas food and all I could think of was a clove ham and Punch de Creme4. LOL!

I’m not a big drinker. I enjoy a beer or two during the week and will occasionally drink a cocktail. However, her question got me thinking about what I might contribute culturally. I looked the web for Punch de Creme recipes but they all seemed too involved. I wanted a recipe that would allow me to create single-serving quickly and with just a few ingredients. I found a West Indian Eggnog recipe that I think does the trick.

I tweaked the original recipe a bit. Ron Zacapa rum is too fine to use a mixer so I used something cheaper. I picked up some Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum and Planat Cognac VS from Steele’s Wine Cellar. I didn’t have access to sugar cane syrup but Shoprite has Liquid Sugar in the Raw. I also changed the units of measure to metric. This is the 21st century.

I thoroughly enjoyed the result. The drink was not cloyingly sweet and the rum and cognac were nicely balanced. The eggnog was not as “spiced” as I had hoped. Perhaps I need to create my own spice mixture. Enjoy.

West Indian Eggnog

  • Servings: 1
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

A wonderful way to bring some West Indian spirit to the winter holidays.



Credit: islandinthenet.com

Ingredients


Directions

  1. Combine all the ingredients in a blender, and blend for 15 seconds.
  2. Add ice, and blend again for 5 seconds.
  3. Pour into your favourite mug.
  4. Garnish with a dusting of nutmeg.
  5. Drink and be merry.

  1. I won’t characterize all of New Jersey or the USA as being the same. Regional cultural differences can be found between the northern and southern end of the state. ↩
  2. a festive mood: jolly, merry, joyous, joyful, happy, jovial, lighthearted, cheerful, jubilant, convivial, high-spirited, mirthful, uproarious; celebratory, holiday, carnival; Christmassy; archaic festal. ↩
  3. They are Hindus. ↩
  4. Punch de Creme is the Trinidad and Tobago version of eggnog. ↩