An interesting aspect of spending the Christmas holidays in a tent on a beach in Mexico, is deciding how to tweak your traditions. We began with family discussion on what people’s expectations were. Or actually, we began before that by opening with “things will be a little different this year” and “we’re going to have to think small and simple here, don’t you think?”
At home we make snowflakes with scissors and white paper, but this year we made them out of shiny silver potato chip bags. We hung the snowflake art inside our tent and on the flowering trees near our tent. The other campers and staff at the area smiled. And the tropical sun glinted nicely off the silver.
Then we agreed that Santa would most likely leave little items in the gear loft. And that’s what happened. Although there were also notes there saying “look at the end of your sleeping bag,” where each kid found two books, one in English and one in Spanish.
We didn’t make a gingerbread house in December as has been our tradition for years, and we didn’t go to lots of holiday parties. We had a rather quiet family day, made sure we greeted people on the beach, and went snorkeling. Next year when we tweak our traditions, I think I’ll carry forward the silvery snowflake-making, wherever we are.
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