Deck The Halls

As many of you now know, Rick flew back to the US for his annual store annual Christmas party. His arrival at the party was a surprise even to his staff.

My uncle Steve had left just a few days prior to Rick going back. The picture below is of us in front of the HMS Diamond Rock. Like many Caribbean islands, Martinique changed hands between the British and French many, many times. During one battle, they elected to make this rock part of her majesty's fleet.

While Rick returned to the US, I stayed back with the dogs in Martinique. And also as many of you know, I love to decorate for the Holidays. So what did I do, you ask? Shop of course!

I would describe the shopping on Martinique as some of the best I’ve seen in the Caribbean. Martinique is like Guadeloupe inasmuch as it is also a Department of France, meaning it is like our states in the USA. The culture of the French islands is more similar to that of France than the former British (now independent) islands. Martinique has superstores that have nearly everything you could need. Both Margit and Chris joined me on a search for the perfect decorations that would fit on a 41 foot catamaran.

We went to all of these superstores on the island: Cora, Carrefore and Euromarche. We even tried the Home-Depot equivalent Mr. Bricolage. Christmas in the islands is not as much in-your-face as we are in the US. For example, the decorations did not even appear on the scene until just after Thanksgiving. I know, hard to believe.

I wasn’t having much luck on our quest for holiday cheer. I was also shopping for a 220V power washer at the same time. What’s that you say? Why? Well, while Rick was gone I also did some heavy cleaning on Eyes of the World and saw Jon Jill next to us using a power washer to make his job easier. Besides, do I really need a reason to purchase power tools?

Chris spotted the shopping center. He saw a small bricolage (French for hardware store) in a strip mall so we pulled over. Margit waited in the car because it was cool and we didn’t want to turn off the A/C. The bricolage didn’t have the power washer, but the strip mall also had a small specialty store for knickknacks. We figured, what the heck, let’s check it out.

This was one of those stores that assaults your senses when you enter. Kind of like a Body Shop or L’Occtaine. There were so many different smells and there was so much stuff crammed into this 100 sq meter store that I nearly did a u-turn and walked out as fast as we went it. However, with Chris just behind me I didn’t want to appear so shallow. I started looking around, trying to clear my mind of the overload to my nose and eyes.

Margit showed up a few moments later, deciding to give up the cool in favor of some good shopping finds. She spotted them first… Thank god she was there; I’d already given up on finding anything among all the stuff. But I’m happy to report that we have two Christmas trees, a strand of lights and some other decorations this year!