Seasons
Where is hot in December, for Christmas in the sun
Spending Christmas in the sun is an old British ambition, and December is a good month for it. The Caribbean is into its dry season, South Africa is in high summer, and Kerala and Oman are at their most comfortable.
By Walter Pellow20 October 20264 min read
There is a particular pleasure in a December spent somewhere warm: the news from home of frost and fog, the paper hats worn in thirty degrees, the swim before Christmas lunch. It is not everyone's idea of Christmas, and some people find it disorienting. But for anyone who has had enough of grey Decembers, or who wants to mark the season differently, the choice of warm places is good.
A Caribbean Christmas at sea
The Caribbean is the classic Christmas escape, and December brings the start of the dry season, after the end of the hurricane season. The islands mark the season with church services, carols, music and food of their own, and a cruise gives a different island most days.
Ambassador's Christmas Caribbean Celebration flies from Heathrow to join the ship at Bridgetown, Barbados, for fourteen nights over the holiday. Its ports include Grenada, St Lucia, Tobago, Guadeloupe, St Kitts, Antigua, Sint Maarten and the British Virgin Islands. Further south are the Dutch islands of Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba, just off the coast of South America.
South Africa, in high summer
In South Africa, Christmas falls in high summer, and it is the country's main holiday season. Families head for the coast, and the beaches and towns of the Garden Route are at their busiest. The Western Cape has its best, driest weather in these months, with long, warm days and the vineyards of the Winelands in full leaf.
Explore Worldwide's South Africa's Garden Route, eleven nights, starts in Cape Town and covers the Cape Peninsula, Simon's Town, with its penguin colony at Boulders Beach, and Stellenbosch. It then goes along the coast to Hermanus and Betty's Bay, and inland through Barrydale to Oudtshoorn in the Little Karoo. From there it returns to the coast at George and follows the Garden Route through Sedgefield and Knysna to Plettenberg Bay. It runs in December.
It is not everyone's idea of Christmas, and some people find it disorienting.
Kerala's beaches and backwaters
In India, December is the heart of the cool, dry season in Kerala. The monsoons have passed, the air is warm rather than humid, and the beaches and backwaters are at their best. Christmas has deep roots in Kerala, which has one of India's oldest and largest Christian communities, said by tradition to go back to the apostle Thomas. In the old port of Kochi, the churches and the Christmas stars hung outside homes make the season visible.
Fort Kochi, the old quarter, is a good place to see how many peoples have passed through this coast. The great cantilevered Chinese fishing nets along the shore are its emblem, lowered and raised by teams of fishermen. St Francis Church, built by the Portuguese, is one of the oldest European churches in India, and Vasco da Gama was buried there in 1524 before his remains were taken back to Portugal. Nearby Mattancherry has a Dutch-era palace and a synagogue from the sixteenth century, in a district once home to a long-established Jewish community. South of Kochi, the backwaters around Alleppey are a web of canals, lagoons and rice fields, best seen slowly from the water.
G Adventures' Kerala: Beaches and Backwaters, six nights, starts in Kochi and the old quarter of Fort Kochi. It then goes to the backwaters around Alleppey and the coast at Kollam. It runs from October to December.
Oman, mild and quiet
Oman is a less obvious Christmas choice, but December is one of the best months to visit. The fierce heat of summer is long gone, the days are warm and sunny, and the nights in the desert are cool. It is a Muslim country, and Christmas passes quietly there, which suits anyone hoping to escape the season rather than celebrate it.
Explore Worldwide's Mountains, Deserts and Coast of Oman, eight nights, starts in Muscat and goes along the coast to the wadis of Arbeieen, Tiwi and Bani Khalid and the port of Sur. It then crosses the dunes of the Wahiba Sands, passes the old villages of Sinaw and Birkat al Mouz, and ends up in the mountains of the Jebel Akhdar, where December nights can be properly cold.
Wherever you go, it helps to accept that Christmas in the sun will feel a little different from the one at home. That is the reason to go.
By Walter Pellow, the name Atlas & Passage’s editorial team writes under. Prices and dates in the trips below come from the operators and can change.
