It’s difficult to think of winter – the topic of this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge — when the temperature’s nearly 80 degrees and I’m looking at the sea. I’m glad that I had these photos in my collection. Lately, with changes in weather patterns, winters are not as severe as they used to be. Sometimes, weeks pass without snow and we get spoiled by so -called ‘good’ weather. We experienced a...

Yesterday, December 29th, Jamaicans went to the polls to elect a new prime minister. Former PM and Leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson-Miller and the People’s National Party won handily – 41 seats to 22. Only time will tell if the PNP will be any different than the outgoing Jamaica Labor Party (JLP). No better herring, no better barrel, is the Jamaican expression that comes to mind. There have been allegations...

Rick’s Cafe, in Negril, is one of the best places to watch the sun set in Jamaica. It’s an event I always look forward to see and I’ve done so on many occasions. Each time, the colors with which the sun paints the clouds as it falls behind the horizon look different, deeper and more intense – purple, orange, blue. This is my submission to this week’s Budget Travelers Sandbox...

Rick’s Cafe has been a fixture in Negril’s West End since 1974. That’s when Richard Hershman, after whom the bar is named, decided to put a bar on a slice of land with a beautiful cove. It was the first establishment of its type in the West End and soon became the place where mostly visitors meet, drink and watch the spectacular Negril sunset for which Rick’s Cafe is famous....

Few flowering plants say Christmas (or December) the way poinsettias do. I found this beautiful one a few weeks ago at Devon House in Kingston. The Jamaican poet, Claude McKay, wrote the following poem, Flame Heart, in praise of the poinsettia. It sums up some of my feelings since I returned home — there’s much that I’ve forgotten about this place but I haven’t forgotten the poinsettia. Now, in addition...

In Jamaica as well as several former British colonies, December 26th is known as Boxing Day. I celebrated Boxing Day for many years before I heard an explanation of its origins. Surprisingly, it isn’t about boxing. According to the story, Boxing Day got its name from the practice by wealthy British landowners from the Middle Ages of giving their servants, who had to work on Christmas Day, boxes of leftover...

Happy Hanukkah! Happy Holidays! Happy Kwanzaa! Merry Christmas / Feliz Navidad / Joyeux Noël! Season’s Greetings! Wishing you  Health, Happiness and Peace this Holiday Season and a Productive New Year of Blogging  

For the last few days, Norad has been tracking Santa Claus as he makes his way from the North Pole. It’s pretty cool to watch the videos they’ve posted of the most recent location where St. Nick’s been spotted. Take a look at this video of Santa as he gets on the road. So while I was watching Santa circumnavigating the world, I started thinking about the North Pole and...

Most of the Christmas carols we learned over the years mention things like snow, mistletoe, stockings, chimneys, etc., that we don’t see here in Jamaica. So after years of singing these songs, several performers began Jamaicanizing the carols, adding a reggae beat and substituting items that local people could relate to. Here now are a few more reggae carols, by John Holt, The Tamlins and Toots & The Maytals. The...

A few weeks ago, I went to buy a few boxes of Christmas cards for a relative. As I strolled the Walgreen’s aisle, searching for the appropriate ones, I was surprised at the variety and selection that was there. I couldn’t help wondering in the age of online greeting cards, digital cameras and the Internet, who sends paper cards for the holidays anymore? According to greetingcard.org, 2 billion boxed and...