Royston Reports, Newsletter No. 19
Next week it will be Christmas. What are you doing? Coming to Sri Lanka?
In Sri Lanka, Christmas Day is a national holiday although the number of Christians in Sri Lanka who celebrate the occasion is about seven per cent of the population. The majority are Buddhist and there are minority Hindus and Muslims. However, everyone in Sri Lanka seems to enjoy the Christmas holiday.
It is a day for fun making, although officially it is treated like a Poya Day with the sale of alcohol banned on Christmas day. So those who like a tipple to help them celebrate have to stock up in advance. That makes Christmas Day a bit quiet for foreign guests in hotels, so hotel managements compensate by arranging a lavish spread on Christmas Eve.
When I was a teenager in Brighton, England, I commemorated one Christmas day by plunging into the freezing sea off the town’s pebble beach. It makes me shiver just thinking about it now. I commemorate that foolhardy endeavour by going to the sandy beach across the road from my cottage in Sri Lanka, for swim in the hot sun on Christmas Day, followed by a glass of champagne and a beach picnic.
If you are from the northern hemisphere and accustomed to a cold Christmas (even a snowy one) a Christmas Day in the sun seems a most unusual experience, perhaps not quite Christmas. But it is. In Sri Lanka hotels serve all the traditional Christmas dishes, usually as a buffet, and the supermarkets stock imported Christmas puddings. I’ve bought a duck this year to have instead of turkey, and have ordered a Christmas Ham from the local supermarket.
Christmas is a shopping festival, especially in Colombo with special deals. Supermarkets are jolly (or nauseating depending on your grouchiness) with commercial Christmas songs and staff wearing Santa Claus hats.
The influence of Dutch colonial days lingers at Christmas in the food, even centuries after they were replaced by the British. Popular at this time of the year favoured by the island’s Burgher population (who are the mixed-race descendants of the Dutch) is Love Cake. Baked as a slab this is a gooey confection of butter, lots of eggs, semolina, chopped cashew nuts, ground cinnamon and honey, with lashings of alcohol. You won’t miss Christmas pudding if you try it.
So actually, Christmas in Sri Lanka is both traditional and tropical, with churches open, beach and riverside picnics and, in the hill country, even a little chill.
We wish all our readers a jolly, merry Christmas next week. If you won’t be in Sri Lanka then, we hope to see you soon in the New Year.
Merry Christmas and a super 2020.
Royston Ellis
Editorial Consultant, Sri Lanka Holiday Guru.
(Please note my next newsletter should reach you on Tuesday 7 January 2020. I’m having a holiday too.)
