Bringing a Jamaican flavour to Christmas in Canada

Food, friends and family take on a whole new meaning when Jamaicans have to spend Christmas outside of their island home.

Although the airports will be busy with hundreds of Jamaicans travelling back home, thousands more will be spending the holidays in their adopted homelands.

The Gleaner caught up with two families who are getting ready to spend another Christmas in Canada. They insist that though they miss the warmth of Jamaica,

the ice-cold winter is no match for the holiday celebrations they have planned.

Cherre Crawford, her husband Rick and daughter Kyra-Leigh have been living in Canada for just over four years, having left Jamaica for the United Kingdom (UK) prior to that.

They have settled in British Columbia, Canada’s most western province where, though the summer months can be longer than other areas, the winters can be just as cold, with projections for this Christmas week hovering around four to eight degrees Celsius, with wind chills to make those temperatures feel below zero.

So, the winter jackets are out in the Jamaican community in British Columbia, which is not a big one, especially compared with the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), where most Jamaicans in Canada live.

But that in no way impacts Crawford.

“Listen, I am still making my fruit cakes and I also sell cakes. When I moved here I had a client base in the UK, so I continued; and it’s not only my own Jamaicans who are buying my cakes, but also the people I work with. So, mi literally just finish 23 cakes in the last two weeks; baking, selling, and I do my sorrel with mi pimento - everything lives on in my house,” she said.

“From mi eye deh a mi knee mi a bake, because I had bakers in my family. When I was a kid in Jamaica, my mom baked, my cousin in New York [baked]. She is the big baker over there, she does it as a business; so, yes, the tradition lives on. My house is ‘smelling’ with pimento and sorrel and fruit cake with the Red Label Wine.”

And she keeps up the Jamaican tradition of starting the preparations for next year’s cakes immediately.

“When the cake finish, like now, I fill up my big glass jar and I put in my red wine and everything and it soaks for a year. Sometimes, all two years mi have things soaking.”

Crawford is also seeing a growing customer base.

“My customers are Jamaicans, as well as other black non-Jamaicans, Africans and Canadians, but I also have a few white customers that reach out and say, ‘Wow!’, because they love the wine, they love the wine in the cakes.”

Crawford is a social worker and, as part of the essential services, she will be on duty on Christmas Day, serving the needs of people who may be in crisis in what can be a difficult period.

Her co-workers have already requested that she bring her trademark cakes to work and, after that, she will join her family and two friends they have invited over for the Christmas feast.

“Christmas dinner going to look good. I finish like 4:30, so we gonna have a big baked chicken, roast beef... a little bit a curry goat, and we gonna throw some steak on. So, after this we not cooking until the new year. We gonna have gungo peas as well, as I like gungo rice and peas; and red peas, because my husband likes red peas. Our daughter doesn’t care, so we gonna be cooking up a storm. It’s on.”

Crawford and her family will also be keeping the Christ in Christmas by going to church on Christmas Eve, where they expect to fellowship with other Jamaicans and the wider British Columbia community.

Over in the GTA, former Calabar High School track and field star Robert Shaw and his high school sweetheart. now wife, Chantelle (she went to Immaculate) have lived in Canada for some 25 years, but some traditions remain fully intact.

The Shaws often entertain friends and family visiting from Jamaica and also host viewing parties for Penn Relays, the Olympics or World Championships when they are not making the trips to be in the various stadia.

For the holidays, Shaw, his wife, and daughter Shanai are hosting a post-Christmas brunch.

“We haven’t hosted in a while and the pandemic really threw us, so now we are throwing open our home to about 20 or 22 people for a Christmas brunch, Jamaican style. So, already on the menu we have ackee and salt fish, callaloo, fritters, boiled and fried dumplings, yams, pear.”

Shaw more than knows his way around the kitchen and will be serving up these delights himself.

“We haven’t gone shopping yet, so the menu could increase,” he told The Gleaner with a laugh.

Temperatures around the GTA are projected to be anywhere between one and eight degrees Celsius, with the wind chill factor making those temperatures feel even colder and some snow likely.

However, expect the old Calabar-Kingston College rivalry to be renewed, with several former high school teammates and competitors who live in the GTA and beyond set to make their way to Shaw’s house as they literally “eat, drink and make merry”.

According to Shaw, it’s brunch, but expect your favourite Jamaican drinks “to warm up everybody”.

“Yeah man, the bar will feature hard liquor, including Jamaican white rum, sorrel, egg nog and of course coffee, hot chocolate and tea, plus freshly squeeze orange juice and cranberry juice for those who don’t want to go hard.”

There are an estimated 300,000 Jamaicans living across all 10 Canadian provinces, with the biggest diaspora in Ontario, especially in the GTA.

karen.madden@gleanerjm.com