Christmas Tree(decorated the eco-friendly way)

Display of Eco-Christmas Gifts

The American Redstart

           It’s that time of year again, that cold and windy season filled with goodwill and cheer. The most wonderful time of the year (some would say)! This year the Natural History Museum of Jamaica mounted its  annual Christmas Exhibit under the theme have an Eco-Friendly Jamaican Christmas. This exhibit showcased several aspects of a traditional Jamaican Christmas such as our Christmas foods, flora, fauna and eco-friendly gifts.

 

           The centerpiece of the exhibit was a Christmas tree from the genus Cupressus , commonly called cypress. It was decorated with sea shells, pine cones, conifer needles, cassia pods, calabash balls and recycled styrofoam balls. As well as ribbons, crepe paper, lights and paper ornaments (in the shapes of butterflies, dragonflies, ladybugs and poinsettias) with a starfish at the pinnacle of the tree. The decorative items used were, as much as possible, natural or recycled items, so as to connote the eco-friendly theme.

Alongside it were pictures of other types of Christmas flora such as poinsettias, Christmas candlestick, Christmas vine, cane flags and sorrel.

 

           Christmas Foods  had pictures of traditional Christmas dishes with their recipes displayed such as Christmas cake, pudding and ham cured Jamaican style. Food items such as sorrel, ginger beer, candy canes, busta, grater cake, tamarind balls represented Christmas liqueurs and sweets. Dried and fresh specimens of ginger, pimento and nutmeg were also a part of the food display.

          

Eco-Christmas Gifts had a beautiful display of pillows and stockings made from burlap and decorated with ribbons, toys made of wool, craft items made from papier mache, wooden organizers and kitchenware,  jewelry boxes decorated with seashells, wind chimes, Christmas cards made

 

which included many species of warblers (also called chip-chip birds), as well as swallows, plovers. herons, egrets, ducks, rails, gallinules, sandpipers, coots and the American Wigeon. All these birds are migrants from North America and have made Jamaica their home away from home during the wintry season.

The bird population actually doubles  during the Christmas   season due to these migrants and studies have shown that they return to the same feeding area every year.  Many of them have proved to be quite useful, such as the warblers who feed on  coffee borer beetles a pest of coffee plants that causes great economic losses in Jamaica.

 

Have an Eco-Friendly

Jamaican Christmas!

from recycled paper, natural body oils and soaps.

Dec 30th 2009    Issue IV                                                                   Pg. 1