Bajans, visitors spend ‘quiet’ day on beach, in parks

It was a peaceful and pleasant Boxing Day holiday for residents and visitors alike, with hundreds flocking to the island’s beaches and other green areas to continue their Christmas celebrations.

On Brownes Beach, several people reported a Christmas season that has been good thus far.

Ariel Curry is a visitor with a significant portion of her family and close friends who are Barbadian by birth. She said she thought that Barbados was the ideal spot to be for the holiday season.

“This has been lovely; the weather has been so nice coming from New York. I was here four weeks ago and I had to come back…. The beach is so lovely, the sand is so white, [and] the water is so blue,” Curry told Barbados TODAY.

“Spending [Christmas] with my family, my godmother, and my parents, that’s the most important to me. I came back with my parents. My mom is Guyanese but my godmother lives here full time; she is Bajan, so we are spending the week with her.”

This visitor to the island was enjoying her coconut water during the afternoon heat.

Damien, a resident, said he was glad that the hustle and bustle was over.

“I’ve just been outside with my cousins from over and away just having a nice beach day,” he said. “To be honest, after the hustle and bustle of Christmas and the actual Christmas Day, you know you slip into a bit of a food coma on [the day]. You [can] come out now for a bit of relaxation.

“The [season] has been a little hectic, along with certain things you had to do and stuff, but you look forward to it.”

Lorna Mayers and her family enjoyed their day at Botanical Gardens.

Adia Alleyne and her family were enjoying the evening sun at Pebbles Beach. Emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, she has found a new sense of appreciation for the Christmas season, thanks to her daughter.

“I guess what makes it more enjoyable for me is my daughter; she is a little more grown now. She was three [during COVID] but she can understand more [about] what is going on, and she is waiting for Christmas, so there is more excitement there. So yeah, I enjoy it a lot more through her,” she said.

Botanical Gardens, usually a hive of activity on bank holidays, saw only a sprinkling of families utilising the green space by mid-afternoon.

Lorna Mayers and her 39 other family members held their annual picnic. She said the tradition was a sobering one for them this year after recently losing a close family member.

“It’s a yearly thing for us because we would have lost a lot of family members, one as recent as last Christmas Eve which was my sister, so we also wanted to do this in memory of her,” Mayers said. “We would have done it last year at Silver Sands Beach but everybody wanted a chance to try something different so we decided to do it here this year.” (SB)