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Home Lifestyle

Celebrating Christmas Overseas Is More Than Eggnog and Expats

‘Tis The Season To Remember All The Ports Of Call We’ve Known...

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Dec 26, 2021
in Lifestyle, Panama
0
Aerial view of Forty Foot during Christmas traditional swim

Adobe Stock/Eugene Remizov

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Christmas In The Emerald Isle

People jumping into the sea at Forty Foot during Christmas traditional swim.
iStock/eugene_remizov

Our seven Christmases in Ireland, we could never bring ourselves to participate in one of Ireland’s quirkiest festive traditions, what the Irish refer to as the “Christmas Day swim.”

On Christmas morning, from beaches, piers, and coves around the country, people of all ages gather to immerse themselves in waters of about 50 degrees Fahrenheit (maximum).

“Swim” is a bit of a misnomer. There is no particular distance that you need to cover, nor any agreed-upon duration you must stay in the water. You simply join the crowd of people running toward and then into the water (cheered on by well-wrapped-up spectators), screaming as their bodies hit the ice-cold sea. A quick splash of the arms and legs, then back in to shore to dry off, wrap up, and enjoy a hot drink or a shot of whiskey.

Wetsuits have appeared on the scene in recent years, mostly among the kids, but it remains an unspoken rule among the hardy adults taking part: traditional bathing suits only.

Christmas In The City Of Light

Christmas tree covered with snow near the Eiffel tower in Paris, France
Adobe Stock/Ekaterina Pokrovsky

Our four Christmases in Paris were all about the lights. Each year, starting in November, Boulevard St. Germain, just a few blocks from our apartment in this city, is strung with tiny white lights. The trees and the building facades are covered with them. Each morning and again each evening as I’d walk Jackson, aged 4 through 8 at the time, to and from school, we’d linger at the intersection of Rue du Bac and Boulevard St. Germain as long as possible, looking up and down, up and down, slowly, working to fix that magical view in our memories.

“It’s a fairy land,” 4-year-old Jack declared it one morning.

I see it still.

Twinkling lights and decorated shop windows. This time of year, storefronts throughout Paris are draped with pine garland, and displays feature green trees flocked with white and trimmed with red and gold baubles. No one does shop windows like the French do shop windows, and no others anywhere compare with the shop windows of central Paris at Christmastime.

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Christmas In The Hub Of The Americas

Christmas tree trimming party at Live and Invest OverseasMy favorite part of Christmas in Panama City, where we’ve lived over the past dozen years, first full- and now part-time, is the chance it gives us to enjoy the diverse community we’ve built in that part of the world.

At our office tree-trimming party every year, the group assembled around our fresh-from-Canada Douglas fir drinking eggnog and singing carols includes Panamanians and Americans, as you might expect, but also German, French, Belgian, Irish, British, Russian, Jamaican, Colombian, Venezuelan, and Canadian friends and colleagues.

In years past, standing off to the side during these parties, watching everyone in the group joke and laugh with each other, I’ve known moments of pure delight.

How fortunate I am, I’ve been fortunate enough to realize, to be part of this eclectic community.

These past near two decades that we’ve been moving around the world as Lief and I have been, it’s been this creation of like-minded societies that has been perhaps the greatest source of pleasure for me everywhere we’ve spent time.

Getting to know people from all around the world, as friends, as business partners, as workmates, then focusing together on particular goals and objectives, helping each other to pursue opportunities as we identify them for both fun and profit… for me, that’s as good as it gets.

This time of year is for taking stock and regrouping… and, as I write from Ljubljana, Slovenia, this Boxing Day 2021, I can’t help but indulge in those directions…

From Baltimore years ago Lief and I took off for Waterford, Ireland… Paris, France… and, eventually, Panama City, Panama…

Then, once our children both were launched, flipping the switch to this next stage…

Which has Lief and me dividing our time between Paris and Panama and moving around the world otherwise as business agendas and personal curiosity dictate.

We’re thinking this sublimely flexible phase of our lives could be the best yet.

This past year has presented extraordinary challenges… but treasured chances, too.

We’ve known struggles… but joy, as well.

Now we look ahead to a New Year that promises more challenge, yes, but great opportunity, too.

Borders are reopening… and we’re all itching to get back out there on the road to discovery.

Where Will 2022 Lead Us?

I can’t wait to find out.

On behalf of the entire far-flung staff of Live and Invest Overseas, please accept our warm and heartfelt wishes for a Merry Christmas, wherever you find yourself enjoying it this year, and our sincere hope that 2022 is the year your own far-flung dreams of adventure overseas begin to come true.

All the best from our family to yours. We so appreciate you coming along with us for this ride and are delighted and honored to count you among our ever-expanding global community.

Sincerely,
Kathleen Peddicord signature
Kathleen Peddicord
Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter

Tags: 'Christmas''France''Ireland'Christmas AbroadChristmas OverseasLive abroadliving overseasPanamaParis
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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