Christmas on Ambae was not even close to a traditional Vermont Christmas but it was filled with family, singing, and feasts! My Mama and I spent Christmas Eve baking cakes and other sweets for Christmas Day. That night the community joined together at the church and put the Nativity front and center to celebrate the real meaning of Christmas.
On Christmas day we enjoyed a big feast with laplap made by me!
But, the best part of the day, in my opinion, was adding a little American custom into Vanuatu's celebrations. Over the past year I have slowly perfected how to make sugar cookies only using a big metal pot and fire! This holiday season we took it a step further and used cookie cutters to make shaped ones then decorated them. They came out beautifully!
Our group was mostly my sisters, cousins, Mamas, Papas, and Bubus (grandparents). We used fake butter and icing sugar whipped together for frosting. I used my awesome art class skills from elementary school and only bought the primary colors of food coloring. Our "paintbrushes" were cotton swabs. This was the first time, but hopefully not the last time, in their lives to decorate cookies! They loved it!
The final products were colorful and delicious. Each person got to decorate two for themselves then any others they decorated they needed to say who they wanted to make it for. Overall we decorated about 100 cookies!!
Whitni came up to our village to join in and with the extra frosting we decorated one of the cakes my Mama and I had baked. Maybe we should start our own island bakery!
Bright and colorful just like everything on the island! You have given them something to remember and carry forward.
ReplyDelete