Emigrants' Christmas: away from Ireland in . . .

Tens of thousands of Irish people have flown home from around the world to spend Christmas with family and friends in Ireland, but thousands more are enjoying the festive season far from home. Here, six Irish emigrants share how they are recreating Irish Christmas traditions in exotic locations, as well as creating their own.

Claire Smyth, Labrador

“After chatting to the family on Viber, we pack up our breakfast and jump on the snowmobile”

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Niall O’Reilly (right) with his partner Poul and their dog Scoobeaudoo, celebrating Christmas in Brittany.

This will be our sixth Christmas away from home and family, living in Labrador in Canada. It’s a four-hour flight to the nearest city, and driving to the nearest town at this time of year can take at least five hours, depending on road conditions. Getting ready to walk outside is a skill in itself, knowing how to layer and prevent losing part of one’s body to frostbite.

But I love it. I love the outdoors, the lack of traffic, the Northern Lights, skiing and snowshoeing. Most of all, I love the people, who have become our family and do what families do: love us and protect us from ourselves and our innocence when living in these conditions, because the serious consequences of living here is that the elements can and do kill. The people around us are particularly important at Christmas, when we’re so far from home.

We keep our own Irish Christmas traditions going here, but with a few add-ons. After chatting to the family on Viber, we pack up our breakfast and jump on the snowmobile to head across the frozen lakes and up the mountain where we stop, light a fire and cook our brekkie.

On the way back home, full of food and fresh air, we call into friends and deliver Roses chocolates and Lyons teabags, which my mammy sends from Ireland. We have Bailey’s on ice before a traditional Christmas dinner, with proper mustard from Dunnes Stores.

This will be my husband Kevin’s first Christmas without his phone call from home, as he buried both of his amazing parents this year after they succumbed to cancer. I’m so aware of his silent suffering. If it was me I don’t think I would be able to lift my head, never mind get out of bed, but Kevin soldiers on with the most amazing strength.

My job as a hospital manager does not allow me to leave the community here over the Christmas period, so I depend on Viber and FaceTime. Every year I come home for a few weeks before or after the season, depending on work, so I’ll be back in January.

Janet Bennis, Brisbane

“This will be our first Christmas together as a family in 13 years”

My husband and I packed up and left Limerick in February this year, to join our four kids and four grandkids in Australia. This will be our first Christmas together as a family in 13 years.

I associate Christmas with a coal fire and mulled wine, people rushing around in shops and the cold weather. When you are waking up to the heat every morning in Brisbane, it is a bit hard to feel festive.

But we attended a Christmas lunch for senior citizens with the Irish Support Association of Queensland last week, which really got me in the Christmas mood. Some of them have been in Australia for 55 years, and I love listening to their stories.

They still say they miss Christmas in Ireland. Some of them have never been back since, and their parents never got to see their Australian grandchildren. It makes me realise we did the right thing moving here.

I took the four grandkids to see the Christmas parade in the city last week. They had Joseph and Mary on a real donkey, and a baby lamb, and the three wise men on three camels. To be able to bring them to something like that is just magic, to watch them walking in front of me, holding hands, and the joy on their faces. We had five years without them, but I couldn’t imagine not being here now. We have so much to make up for.

We have about 20 people coming for Christmas dinner. My son’s and daughter’s partners are both Greek, and their parents are coming. My son’s friend, who moved here from Limerick with him, is an only child, so his parents have flown out for Christmas and are coming as well. And there’s the 13 of us – myself, Eugene, our four kids and their partners, and our four grandkids.

I’m still doing the Christmas turkey and ham, because I want to have a bit of Irish tradition, but because there’re so many of us, we’ll have a barbecue too. I’m so excited to have all of us together for it.

I miss going into town and doing my shopping, meeting the girls for lunch or a drink, and saying Happy Christmas to everyone you meet. We have new friendships here in Brisbane, but those people we’ve known for 40 years aren’t here and that’s a bit hard. But it has all been worth it.

Alan O’Connor, San Francisco

“We’ll have a good fry-up with real bacon before flying to the Caribbean”

I have spent the past three Christmases in San Francisco, since I was transferred from Dublin with the company I work for. On Christmas Eve, I always find a bar and have a very good Irish whiskey with some friends to celebrate, and call my family on Skype.

My friends in the Bay Area are mostly immigrants from all over the world, and most of them stay around for the holiday season. We have a “Friendsgiving” instead of Thanksgiving, and something similar again at Christmas. We go to visit the wineries in Napa, or hiking in the hills. The weather is about 18 degrees at this time of year, so we always leave the city and do something outdoors-y.

This year is a little different. On Christmas night, my girlfriend and I are flying with a bunch of friends to the British Virgin Islands, to begin a week’s sailing holiday around the Caribbean for Yacht Week. The flights are the US equivalent of Ryanair; the Caribbean is the place we go instead of Europe.

There’s a great Irish store here in the Richmond area, and I’ve stocked up on brown soda bread and some treats from home such as Wispa bars and Tayto. Around this time of year, I indulge myself with these things. But I’m surprised each time how quickly my money goes in that shop. My family usually send a “care package” too, with real bacon, so we’ll have a good fry-up on Christmas morning.

My best friends, who all fly into Dublin from around the world, have an annual Christmas dinner in the days leading up to Christmas. I usually Skype in to say hello, or leave a bottle of something sparkling in the restaurant for them.

I have only one sibling, and he’s spending Christmas with his girlfriend’s family this year. I always laugh that guys tend to follow the ladies when it comes to where they are spending Christmas. My parents are heading away too, on a break to Kilkenny. Friends and family are what I miss most from home at this time of year.

Sheena King, Singapore

“In an effort to salvage some of the Irish Christmas craic here, we have created the ‘12 Apartments of Christmas’”

My childhood Christmases were spent surrounded by a large Catholic family in north Tipperary, fighting over who got the crispy bits of the turkey skin, and who got to set the pudding on fire. But now I’ve swapped my home-cooked Christmas dinner and the 12 pubs of Christmas tradition of my adulthood for one of the least Christmassy places in the world: sweaty Singapore.

Last year I was excited to experience Christmas somewhere new, but this year I would love to have gone home. Christmas is the only time of year I get homesick. My three sisters live abroad and it’s usually the only time of year we all get together. But it is so expensive to travel to Europe at Christmas.

In an effort to salvage some of the Irish Christmas craic here, myself and some fellow lonely expats have created the “12 Apartments of Christmas”. A group of us from Ireland, France, America, Wales, Poland and Italy gathered together last Saturday. The rules were simple: each person had to host the group in their apartment at some stage throughout the day, providing a cocktail and some snacks, and everyone had to wear a hideous Christmas accessory.

Christmas Day itself is business as usual for a lot of restaurants, hairdressers and shops, so it’s easy to forget it’s happening. But we will kick-start the day with an Irish breakfast, spend the afternoon by the pool sipping cocktails, and end the night in a restaurant. It’s not home, but at least I won’t have to listen to Dad snoring in the corner after dinner.

Francis O’Hara, Auckland

“Instead of trying to recreate an Irish Christmas, I use the day to prepare for a motorcycle street race”

Christmas has never been the same since I moved to Auckland in 2009. Year after year, I have tried to recreate that “festive feeling” from family Christmases at home in Belmullet in Co Mayo.

A barbecue in the New Zealand sun sounds great from Ireland, but the novelty of sitting on the beach in sunhats slathered in suncream to celebrate Christmas wears off quickly. Closing the curtains against the hot sun and having a traditional turkey roast indoors doesn’t cut the mustard either.

Walking through a shopping centre a few years ago in shorts and a tee-shirt, looking at Santa’s grotto decorated with fake snow, I had a moment of realisation. That day, I gave up chasing that old Christmas feeling.

So instead of trying to recreate an Irish Christmas in the southern hemisphere, I now sacrifice Christmas Day and use it to travel and prepare for a motorcycle street race in Whanganui, New Zealand. I started racing bikes shortly after moving here.

The circuit is laid out over closed public roads running through small towns. One of the sections goes straight through the centre of a graveyard, giving it the ominous nickname of the “Cemetery Circuit”.

Some day, when children come along, my Christmas routine will change again, but right now, when everyone in Ireland is curling up to the fire and tuning into the Christmas Day movie, I will have the biggest smile on my face hurtling through the streets of Whanganui at more than 200kmph .

Niall O’Reilly, Brittany

“I miss the atmosphere in Dublin and the old customs such as taking a dip in Lough Annagh on Christmas morning”

I’m spending Christmas in the Celtic region of Brittany, with my partner Poul and our dog Scoobeaudoo. We run a cooking school, so lots of happy faces around a large table eating great food and drinking superb wines is a normal occasion for us. At Christmas, we are looking forward to it being just the three of us.

My partner is Danish, so we celebrate Christmas on December 24th and 25th. On Christmas Eve, we spend a few hours on the beautiful Briton coast at St Papu, where the sandy beach is great for a lovely long walk, and long runs for Scoobeaudoo.

Later in the evening, we enjoy a traditional Danish Christmas dinner starting with marinated salmon gravadlax, followed by duck breast with red cabbage and caramelised tiny potatoes.

The meal finishes with a dessert of rice pudding with almonds, served in a black cherry sauce. As it will be just the two of us drinking wine, we open one or two rare vintages.

On Christmas Day, we will head down to the Gulf of Morbihan and do another long walk. This spot is amazing, with hundreds of little islands just waiting to be discovered.

In the evening we will celebrate with an Irish Christmas dinner. The starter will be gravadlax again, because I love it. I also enjoy pan-fried quail with a port and grape sauce. For dessert, it’s hard to beat a simple apple pie with homemade poppyseed ice cream. This will be served with an ice wine from Canada.

I miss the atmosphere in Dublin leading up to Christmas, and meeting up with friends and relations. I love walking in the Dublin and Wicklow mountains, as well as the old customs such as taking a dip in Lough Annagh in Co Cavan on Christmas morning. But I don’t miss the growing commercialism of Christmas, all the advertising and the pressure to shop.

Here in Brittany, the roads are always clear of traffic, Christmas is a low-key affair, and the neighbours socialise and entertain in each other’s homes.

On December 27th we have a week’s course starting in the cooking school, with students coming from Australia and the US. We will be very busy preparing lunch and dinner each day, and a big banquet on New Year’s Eve.

[ emigration@irishtimes.com ]