Surprisingly, with 3 children aged 14, 12 and 10 there was not too much persuasion needed to spend Christmas away from the usual traditions and replace it with a Caribbean Santa.

Admittedly, there is a lot to think about when spending Christmas on holiday when you have children – how many presents to bring, how will Santa find us, dust off the summer clothes, is there a local Church, will we need bring our own tinsel and mince pies?

So, with an extra suitcase we left gloomy Sussex on 22 December for our Christmas family holiday in Barbados, staying at the glorious Sea Breeze Beach House.

24 Dec was spent swimming with turtles in the afternoon and an early Christmas eve mass at the local church where we were welcomed with open arms. A wonderful dinner at Cerulean and an early night ready for the big day ahead.

Despite only our youngest believing in Santa, we all know the older ones still expect a visit too – and he found us!  Santa had left presents on the balcony  – maybe he’d had too much rum punch to make inside!. So with our antlers on we headed down for Christmas day on the beach – Santa arrived on the ice cream cart at 11am and the day was spent in and out of the ocean – we had the best Christmas Day ever!

The rest of the holiday we explored the island, had a fabulous day on a catamaran, Sea Breeze took all of the guests to the East Coast for a traditional Bajan picnic with steel pan and beach games, we had relaxing days at the beach and pool and then it was New Years Eve.

The Bajan’s know how to throw a party! We spent the evening with our new found friends and saw in the New Year with sand between our toes.

I am not sure how we top this next year!

Debbie Cleary – Managing Director Clear Marketing