Christmas Bells

Just a short note today. 

Christmas is fast approaching.  I went to town for groceries around noon and noticed the staff on the rooftops setting up their Christmas lights.  On the way out of the Marketplace, which sits across from the Cathedral, the church bells were chiming Christmas melodies.

Christmas always sneaks up on me in Bermuda.  I have spent most of my life scraping the ice off the car windows in November and hanging on for dear life on the icy commute to work, getting stuck in traffic for prolonged times and forced to listen to Christmas ads on the radio for weeks before I start Christmas shopping.  Without the cues of snow, perpetually gray skies, and bone chilling cold, I have once more arrived at the realization too late that Christmas is almost upon us.  I am not saying this is a bad thing, in fact I am quite happy about this.  But it is a bad thing for all of those on my Christmas list.  You see, Christmas preparations are difficult in Bermuda.  I feel that I must explain the Bermuda Postal Service to put this in perspective.

The Bermuda Postal Service is government agency, and so when you couple the standard government inefficiencies of any country with what I call Bermuda "sweet time" (due to a general lack of urgency seen on many islands), I cringe at the thought of dealing with the post.  My National Geographic magazines arrive in an interesting fashion -- sometimes 1 month late, sometime I will go 2 or 3 months and then get a bundle, and happily, this November I finally got my May edition.  The first year I moved to the island my friend Karen, renowned for the baking of incredible cookies, send me a package of homemade gingersnaps for Christmas.  What a delightful surprise when I received a surprise package later that March.  I hesitated for at least 20 seconds, going through my mental notes of every bacteria, mould, or toxin that could attack a cookie that spent 3 months lost in the Bermuda Postal Service...but this was a KAREN cookie...and it was in Tupperware...and they were delicious.  I survived with no adverse effects.  I do however wonder if all those missing planes and boats that people have recorded as lost in the Bermuda Triangle will one day show up on top of some one's mailbox...perhaps the postal service IS the Bermuda Triangle.  Just a thought.

Shipping to or from Bermuda is incredibly expensive.  An large envelope of documents sent regular post can easily cost $30.  A small package can be $30-$70.  One friend told me she packaged something up but the postage would have been $150 on $20 worth of merchandise.  Still though, sometimes the people that love me very very much will still pay to mail me presents.  After the shipping party has paid the enormous fees, when the package arrives, it must be inspected by the postal service.  When you do get a card in your mailbox telling you there is a package, you must go to the post office, usually stand in line through most of your lunch break, and then when the package arrives you must open it in front of the post office staff.  You can imagine how much of a spoiler this is for Christmas and Birthday presents.  To make it worse, once the surprise is ruined, they tally up the value of the gift and you have to pay them 25% of its value as a tax.  Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas.  Now, my Bermudian friends will be quick to point out that we pay a very low income tax and the government gets its revenue by taxing items that are brought onto the island.  It's still a Christmas bummer folks.  However, thanks to my friend Tonya, I have won a few times.  Tonya always sends incredibly thoughtful gifts, and gives me the satisfaction of baffling and confounding the postal service.  This April she spent $8 on postage to send me a handful of Cadbury Easter Screme Egg minis.  I could see the wheels turning with the postal service...what was I trying to pull?  I grinned, waiting to see if they were going to make me eat them on sight to ensure there was no contraband inside...but with a wary eye, they shook the package again to make sure nothing more valuable that they could tax popped out, and sent me on my way.  They could only shake their heads when my flannel penguin jammies arrived the year before.  Perhaps they remembered me though, for when my $11 Shutterfly calender arrived that I made with my own pictures, they charged me $17 to pick it up.

And then, of course, there are Christmas cards.  I never sent Christmas cards in Canada, as I knew I would see everyone over the season.  Moving abroad, I decided it was a must.  Knowing how long it takes, I bought my Christmas cards the first week of November, and dutifully hand wrote and addressed about 50 of them.  I went to the post office to buy the stamps, sealing the first envelopes while I waited, and then she gave me 2 sets of stamps -- one for 75 cents, and one for $1.75 (or something like that).  I asked why they were different and she looked at me like I was stark raving mad and said "Because you licked those."  Another one of those confusing moment for me in Bermuda.  After a few awkward questions met with terse answers, it turns out licking the envelopes does not actually get you a fine, but there are 2 rates, it costs a dollar more to send a greeting card if you seal the envelope.  You get a discount for leaving it unsealed.  Of course, I thought, you inspect the envelopes to make sure there is nothing taxable or contraband in there?  Do you seal it afterwards so the card doesn't fall out?  No....is all I got.  The loophole is that if you buy a sticker or Easter seal and close the card with that, your postage rate is 1/3 of what it is if you actually use the seal on the envelope.  So, for four years, I diligently stopped licking my envelopes to get all of your Christmas cards to you.

However, as I scooted down the street under a blue sky and the church bell chorus of carols, I realized that I have not yet bought, written, addressed, and dutifully not licked any Christmas cards this year.  I missed the cues...but then again, I will see you all in 2014, and so the Christmas card seems a little less urgent this year.  Hope you are all enjoying your Christmas preparations, wherever you are.  I apologize for the lack of a Christmas card this year, but hope to take up a chair at your table for a visit in the New Year...till then, take care!